Mergers and Acquisitions have long been used as strategies for continued growth and expansion of businesses as well as tools for reducing or totally eliminating competition. They are of different types and can be used by organizations to achieve a variety of objectives. A conglomerate merger for example can help an organization to enter a totally different product or service market and also grant it access to new technologies. There are a number of strategic reasons why companies may choose to either merger with another company or acquire another company or even allow itself to be acquired by another company. Just like mergers, acquisitions are also of different types; they can either be hostile or friendly depending on how the process is undertaken. Mergers and Acquisitions are expected to produce synergies whereby both companies will mutually benefit from each other. For example, a company will be able to gain access to new markets and have new customer base due to the fact that it mergers with another company in a target market.  However, a failure to produce a synergy means that the merger or acquisition deal is overall a failure as well.

In Nigeria, a number of mergers and acquisitions have occurred over the last 10 years due to Government regulation requiring all commercial banks to have a N25 billion capital base or risk being liquidated. Consequently, many commercial banks went into a merger and acquisition frenzy just to meet the deadline set by the Government regulated Central Bank of Nigeria. Three banks out of the many that went into a merger and acquisition deal were examined for this research work. A lens was placed on their pre-merger financial performance and their post-merger financial position in order to ascertain whether the project had been a success or a failure.

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER THREE: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS