Decoding the UK Hostile Takeover Regime

Assessing the plausibility of the takeover's market efficiency theory, this paper advocates that the current regulatory framework of UK hostile takeovers confers an unfair advantage upon acquirers often at the detriment of the long-term performance of target companies. Driven by the "sacred" concept of shareholder value, the current legal framework has been structurally drafted upon false economic narratives which favor hands-off ownership, short-term myopic decision-making, and militate against investors engaging in the long-term strategy of the British plc. Thereby, sanctioning a financialized form of governance which undermines the importance of corporate stewardship by permitting acquirers to not only impinge upon the interests of target companies but to damage the wider industrial economy in the long-run. Illuminating a wide spanning regulatory vacuum, a fundamental re-investigation of the UK takeover regime is long overdue.