ABSTRACTThis paper examines the role of legal investor protection for the efficiency of the market for corporate control when bidders are financially constrained. In the model, stronger legal investor protection increases bidders' outside funding capacity. However, absent effective bidding competition, this does not improve efficiency, as the bid price, and thus bidders' need for funds, increases one‐for‐one with the pledgeable income. In contrast, under effective competition for the target, the increased outside funding capacity improves efficiency by making it less likely that more efficient but less wealthy bidders are outbid by less efficient but wealthier rivals.