【Abstract】This paper examines the impact of hometown-based business associations (HBAs), formal social networks constructed based on members sharing a hometown, on the cross-province M&As performance of Chinese A-share listed private firms. We find that HBAs significantly increase firms' cross-province M&As performance. The positive association between HBAs and M&As performance is more pronounced in the target provinces with a lower level of marketization, underdeveloped intermediary organization markets, and limited access to information. The findings suggest that information is an important channel through which HBAs improve M&As performance. Moreover, HBAs are substitutes for informal social networks. Our results are robust to various endogeneity checks.