Optimising spatial mergers: commercial and regulatory perspectives

This paper explores the potential application of spatial analysis and modelling techniques to the merger problem, and introduces a conceptual spatial modelling framework to improve retail merger and acquisition planning from both a commercial and regulatory perspective. Focusing on the UK retail sector, the paper demonstrates the importance of local scale market ‘dynamics’ in merger and acquisition (M&A) planning and evaluation; reviews the range of existing spatial modelling approaches to retail location problems, and illustrates how these models can be applied to M&A planning.