The last forty years has seen huge amounts of mergers and acquisitions between companies. In my opinion, a large majority of these have negative results for investors. There are certain rare occasions where there is true strategic alignment and two companies coming together will increase profitability and results for customers. In most cases though, there are a few individuals who benefit (CEO, a couple top managers, sometimes board members) at the expense of investors, employees, and customers.
Mergers and acquisitions are usually ESPECIALLY bad for customers. There are a few cases where the acquiring company allows the other company to scale faster, or where two service offerings are complimentary. However in most cases, mergers and acquisitions cause prices to rise and quality to go down.
M&A is also bad for employees in most cases… especially when there are “redundancies” which is one of the ways an investor might be able to benefit.