LSEG Workspace (ex Refinitiv Workspace)

Downloading historical stock prices of companies involved in mergers and acquisitions transactions

You can use the Screener app available both in LSEG Workspace desktop and in the Excel add-in, as shown below:

• from LSEG Workspace Desktop main page, type “Screener” in the search box on the top, and click on the first result (the one with the App icon):

• “Workspace” Excel add-in:

The Screener is a tool that allows you to find securities and deals with specific characteristics.

You can apply simple as well as sophisticated filters, and rank the results based on a wide range of criteria to identify the most relevant deals.

If you are interested in Mergers & Acquisitions deals, start selecting “Deals” from the Universe scroll down menu:

Select “M&A” from the Asset Class scroll down menu:

Let’s perform a sample search:

We want to find all the deals with a value greater than 100 million USD dollars, completed between 1st of January  2015 and 1st of January 2021, where a U.S. listed company (Acquiror) acquired a European company (Target)

On the right-hand side of the screen you can see the results:

To get all the information on a specific deal, click the icon “Click to show details on Tranche”:

From the list of results you can:

• Items in each column can be sorted by clicking the arrow next to the column title:

• Delete unnecessary columns by clicking the “x” icon:

• You can enrich the output by adding columns to display additional variables: enter a keyword in the  “Add columns” field and select the desired datatype:

 

 

 

 

 

Alternatively, open the whole library of variables by clicking the menu “Launch data item Library”:

Please note: If you need to download the stock prices of the companies involved in the transactions, we recommend you to add an identification code (for example the Datastream code):

Now you can download your results by clicking the Excel icon “Export All as Values”:

Finally, download the stock prices of the acquirors from the announcement date to one year afterwards, using the Excel add-in Datastream:

Open a new Excel sheet and copy the columns “Acquiror Datastream” and “Date Announced”, add a column providing the exact end date, move to an empty cell and click the icon “Datastream Formula”:

Fill the Datastream Formula:

• In the boxes “Series/Lists”, “From” and “To” refer to the cells with the company code and the dates for the first company (row n.2):

• Click the icon “Find Datatypes” to search the price code through the Navigator, click “P” or tick “Price-Trade” , then click “Use”:

Click “Insert” to create the formula and download the prices of the first company in your list:

Modify the formula by removing the symbol “$” and scroll down to populate your Excel sheet: