Investors that use the merger arbitrage strategy are well aware that their average odds of success are around 95%. An announced deal with a merger agreement has a very high probability of closing. But you know what they say about averages. A six foot tall person can drown in a river that is on average about five feet deep. Deals fail because regulators block the deal on competitive or national security concerns, shareholders vote down the deal, the acquiring party is unable to raise the money needed or in rare instances there is a material adverse event (MAE).
The last time I analyzed both closed and failed deals by mining data from our database was more than 5 years ago when I wrote a trio of articles for Seeking Alpha including,