Post-merger Performance in Financial Service Industry: A Case of the Republic of Serbia

Understanding consumers’ needs implies creating an adequate offering, which leads to good and institutions after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with foreign organisations in the Republic of Serbia. The main actors in these M&A activities were banks. Our research and analysis cover the period from 2002 when M&A processes were intensified by the end of 2017. The results obtained indicate that the arrival of foreign banks led to the consolidation of the Serbian financial services market. Numerous strategic advantages have been achieved, and a lot of weaknesses from the past have been eliminated. However, when analysing the most important profitability ratios (ROA, ROE, NIM), a slightly different picture is obtained. Compared with the banks that came through greenfield investments and a group of domestic banks, this group of banks made slightly lower performances.