Applying Jaya technique in examining the effective factors in the process of Mergers and acquisitions

The purpose of this article is to investigate and determine the factors affecting integration and acquisition activities in Iran. For this purpose, two hypotheses were determined and the annual data of 30 companies of the Tehran Stock Exchange in the period 2008-2020 were used to test the hypotheses. To test the hypotheses, the neural network method optimized with the Jaya optimization method was used to examine the effect of the studied variables including firm size and growth ability, risk growth, asset return, equity return, and financial leverage. Analysis using neural networks is used to isolate and clarify the effects of each of the studied variables. The analysis of the neural network showed that the three variables, exchange rate, interest rate, and stock price are very important in the process of changes in merger and acquisition activities in the country. Exchange rate fluctuations in particular have a very elastic effect on mergers and acquisitions, indicating that price effects are important in determining the flow of domestic and foreign investment. The stock market index had a positive effect on domestic mergers and acquisitions. Interest rates had a negative effect on mergers and acquisitions.