According to research released by Intralinks, the leaking of information regarding mergers and acquisitions has been associated with an extra $21 million being added to the value of those deals. Not only did the research reveal that the leaking of details about M&A deals was being used as a way of inflating the price of an M&A deal, but it also found that leaks are far more common than many of us realize.
In the period that the report covered, the researchers stated that as many as 8.6% of all M&A deals worldwide had their details leaked ahead of time. What’s more, this figure remained static over the years the research covered, increasing at the same rate as M&A deals overall.