"Brave" post-Lehman M&A rewarded by market -study

* Acquirers who bought after Lehman's fall beat wider market

* "Fortune favours the brave" -Towers Perrin/Cass study says

* J&J, Symantec, Cisco, Abbott, BG among repeat acquirers

By Quentin Webb

LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - Stock markets rewarded companies such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Cisco (CSCO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) who were brave enough to make acquisitions in the months after Lehman Brothers' collapse, a study released on Monday showed.

Although firms who made purchases worth $100 million or more suffered an average 25.5 percent fall in their stock price, they outperformed the wider market by 6.3 percentage points, the Towers Perrin/Cass Business School research found.

Global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) plunged 40 percent in the first half of 2009 to $941 billion, as shrinking economies, volatile markets and scarce debt hammered corporate confidence. The World Bank forecasts the global economy will shrink 2.9 percent this year. [ID:nSGP000012]

"Companies with M&A in mind should be emboldened by our analysis: fortune favours the brave," the study's authors, led by Marco Boschetti, wrote. "Fears that M&A is riskier post-Lehman seem to be misplaced."