Leverage,governance and wealth effects of asset purchasers

We examine a sample of 670 firms that announce asset purchases. We hypothesize that buyer announcement returns should be higher in the presence of better monitoring and better governance. Consistent with the monitoring hypothesis, we find that buyers with higher private debt make purchase decisions that increase shareholder value. Consistent with the governance hypothesis, we find that returns are higher for buyers that have lower antitakeover provisions in place. Consistent with the managerial discretion hypothesis, buyer announcement-period returns increase with buyer leverage. Consistent with the liquidity hypothesis, we find that announcement-period returns decrease with the seller's Z-score, suggesting that buyers benefit from the lower liquidity of assets sold by sellers with lower debt capacity and higher financial distress. We also find that buyer announcement-period returns are directly related to their operating performance in the post-purchase year.     

Methods of Payment in Asset Sales: Contracting with Equity versus Cash

We analyze intercorporate asset sales where equity is the means of payment, and compare the results to cash asset sales. Equity deals are value‐enhancing for both buyers, 10%, and sellers, 3%, while cash sales generate seller returns of 1.9% and buyer returns that are not significant. Combined wealth gains are large for equity deals, but modest for cash deals. Equity‐based asset sales are not a precursor to consolidations between buyers and sellers, and do not affect buyer openness to the takeover market. We conclude that the use of buyer equity conveys favorable information about the value of assets and buyers.     

Asset liquidity,business risk,and beta

Extant literature posits that because of leverage, equity beta estimates from a single factor capital asset pricing model based on an equity-only market index are biased. We show analytically that this leverage bias is intimately related to the firm's asset structure per se, the firm's asset liquidity (i.e., cash holdings) and business risk. This is mainly because riskless cash holdings and risky real assets jointly determine the relevant risk for asset pricing. We empirically confirm that asset liquidity and business risk can marginally explain the leverage bias in the cross-section of stocks returns.     

Money and asset prices with uninsurable risks

We present a theory of differences of liquidity across assets, based on an endogenous ranking of assets as media of exchange arising from their relative quality as hedging devices. When assets have two distinct roles, as intertemporal media of exchange and hedging devices, buyers have generically a strict preference for paying sellers with the asset which is the relative better hedging device for sellers. The consequence of this preference is that there are three monetary policy regimes, and these regimes differ in which assets serve as media of exchange, whether assets carry a liquidity premium, and in the impact that monetary policy has on asset prices.     

The collateral channel: Evidence on leverage and asset tangibility

We examine how asset structure is related to leverage in different institutional environments, using tens of thousands of firm-level observations from small, privately held, emerging market firms that are likely to face financing constraints. Our empirical analysis indicates that the linkage between asset tangibility (fixed assets as a portion of total assets) and leverage (measured as long-term debt over total assets) varies, such that in countries with fewer restrictions on collateral (land transferability), the relationship between these variables is much tighter. This also applies to the linkage between tangibility and debt maturity structure (measured as long-term debt over total debt). We find no evidence that industry concentration in different countries or changing composition of firms over time is driving our findings. The results are robust to using firm-level fixed effects specifications, to clustering error terms at the country level, and to using an alternative proxy for collateral law regime.     

Predicting systematic risk: Implications from growth options

In accordance with the well-known financial leverage effect, decreases in stock prices cause an increase in the levered equity beta for a given unlevered beta. However, as growth options are more volatile and have higher risk than assets in place, a price decrease may decrease the unlevered equity beta via an operating leverage effect. This is because price decreases are associated with a proportionately higher loss in growth options than in assets in place. Most of the existing literature focuses on the financial leverage effect: This paper examines both effects. We show, with a simple option pricing model, the opposing effects at work when the firm is a portfolio of assets in place and growth options. Our empirical results show that, contrary to common belief, the operating leverage effect largely dominates the financial leverage effect, even for initially highly levered firms with presumably few growth options. We then link variations in betas to measurable firm characteristics that proxy for the fraction of the firm invested in growth options. We show that these proxies jointly predict a large fraction of future cross-sectional differences in betas. These results have important implications on the predictability of equity betas, hence on empirical asset pricing and on portfolio optimization that controls for systematic risk.     

The Market for Corporate Assets: Who Engages in Mergers and Asset Sales and Are There Efficiency Gains?

We analyze the market for corporate assets. There is an active market for corporate assets, with close to seven percent of plants changing ownership annually through mergers, acquisitions, and asset sales in peak expansion years. The probability of asset sales and whole-firm transactions is related to firm organization and ex ante efficiency of buyers and sellers. The timing of sales and the pattern of efficiency gains suggests that the transactions that occur, especially through asset sales of plants and divisions, tend to improve the allocation of resources and are consistent with a simple neoclassical model of profit maximizing by firms.     

A tale of two Us: Corporate leverage and financial asset allocation in China

Firms choose to make liquid and illiquid financial investments due to different motives and, therefore, how they relate to corporate leverage may exhibit different non-linear shapes. On the one hand, firms hold liquid financial assets to hedge against external uncertainty and liquidity shocks based on the “precautionary saving” motive. This implies a positive U-shaped relationship between the leverage ratio and liquid financial asset allocation. On the other hand, firms allocate illiquid financial assets due to the “investment substitution” motive to earn high yields. This leads to an inverted U-shaped relationship between the leverage ratio and illiquid financial asset holdings. Using financial data of Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2017, we verify the above theoretical predictions. Further analysis finds factors such as internal and external risks, financing environment, and total factor productivity to be important determinants of corporate financial asset allocation.     

The contribution of bank regulation and fair value accounting to procyclical leverage

Our analysis of how banks’ responses to asset price changes can result in procyclical leverage reveals that, for banks with a binding regulatory leverage constraint, absent differences in regulatory risk weights across assets, procyclical leverage does not occur. For banks without a binding constraint, fair value and bank regulation both can contribute to procyclical leverage. Empirical findings based on a large sample of U.S. commercial banks reveal that bank regulation explains procyclical leverage for banks relatively close to the regulatory leverage constraint and contributes to procyclical leverage for those that are not. We also show that fair value accounting does not contribute to procyclical leverage.     

土地资产价格波动与经济中的流动性供给——基于以地融资视角的研究

本文通过构建理论模型探讨土地资产价格波动与流动性供给之间的关系。在本文模型中,土地兼具生产资本与抵押资产属性,银行贷款同时受到投资需求、抵押品价值与信贷额度的约束。本文主要结论是:(1)土地资产价格在低于一个由基础货币供给决定的临界值后,能影响企业的抵押品价值并反映投资需求变化,故而与存款货币流动性供给正相关。这也使土地资产价格变化与企业杠杆周期一致且具有“预期自我实现”特征。(2)基础货币供给能够通过影响土地的流动性价值的方式来引导土地资产价格,前提是央行可掌握土地资产价格外生变化的原因。(3)信贷资产证券化会提高存款货币供给与土地价格的关联度,但也会削弱基础货币供给对土地价格的引导能力。本文的研究有助于认识土地资产价格与货币政策效果以及系统性金融风险的关联机制,为房地产调控政策提供启示。     

Leverage causes fat tails and clustered volatility

We build a simple model of leveraged asset purchases with margin calls. Investment funds use what is perhaps the most basic financial strategy, called ‘value investing’, i.e. systematically attempting to buy underpriced assets. When funds do not borrow, the price fluctuations of the asset are approximately normally distributed and uncorrelated across time. This changes when the funds are allowed to leverage, i.e. borrow from a bank, which allows them to purchase more assets than their wealth would otherwise permit. During good times, funds that use more leverage have higher profits, increasing their wealth and making them dominant in the market. However, if a downward price fluctuation occurs while one or more funds is fully leveraged, the resulting margin call causes them to sell into an already falling market, amplifying the downward price movement. If the funds hold large positions in the asset, this can cause substantial losses. This in turn leads to clustered volatility: before a crash, when the value funds are dominant, they damp volatility, and after the crash, when they suffer severe losses, volatility is high. This leads to power-law tails, which are both due to the leverage-induced crashes and due to the clustered volatility induced by the wealth dynamics. This is in contrast to previous explanations of fat tails and clustered volatility, which depended on ‘irrational behavior’, such as trend following. A standard (supposedly more sophisticated) risk control policy in which individual banks base leverage limits on volatility causes leverage to rise during periods of low volatility, and to contract more quickly when volatility becomes high, making these extreme fluctuations even worse.     

Leverage,Moral Hazard,and Liquidity

Financial firms raise short‐term debt to finance asset purchases; this induces risk shifting when economic conditions worsen and limits their ability to roll over debt. Constrained firms de‐lever by selling assets to lower‐leverage firms. In turn, asset–market liquidity depends on the system‐wide distribution of leverage, which is itself endogenous to future economic prospects. Good economic prospects yield cheaper short‐term debt, inducing entry of higher‐leverage firms. Consequently, adverse asset shocks in good times lead to greater de‐leveraging and sudden drying up of market and funding liquidity.     

Long‐Run Stock Performance and Its Determinants for Asset Buyers

This paper examines the long‐term stock performance of asset purchasers and the determinants of cross‐sectional differences in performance. Our findings show that buyers’ stocks, on average, underperform following purchases. Buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns of buyers acquiring related assets are significantly higher than those acquiring unrelated assets, consistent with the focus hypothesis. Asset buyers with superior prior stock performance experience poorer long‐run performance than buyers with inferior prior stock performance, consistent with the prior performance hypothesis. Asset buyers that manage earnings upward, experience poorer long‐term abnormal stock performance than acquirers with downward earnings management, consistent with the earnings management hypothesis. The long‐term return evidence is to some degree consistent with the governance hypothesis but we find little support for the free cash flow hypothesis.     

Asset sales and firm strategy: an analysis of divestitures by UK companies

This paper examines the financial causes and consequences of the decision to sell-off non-financial assets as part of a new or ongoing restructuring programme by UK non-financial companies between 1993 and 2000. We report that asset sales follow a period of declining operating returns and tend to occur in diversified companies with high levels of financial leverage. Stock prices respond positively to asset sale announcements. This arises due to improvements in operating returns and a decline in financial leverage and corporate diversification subsequent to the disposal. Our findings suggest that asset sales represent an effective operational response to a firm's poor financial condition. However, we also find that a manager's decision to sell assets is strongly influenced by the explicit threats to their control from lenders and competition from product, labour and takeover markets.     

The value of financing through cross-border asset sales: Shareholder returns and liquidity

We examine a sample of 1458 divestitures of domestic assets by U.S. firms to foreign and domestic buyers over the period 1998–2008. Cross-border asset sales yield higher abnormal returns to the seller than domestic sales. This incremental return is driven by liquidity-seeking sellers engaging in cross-border transactions. Larger seller returns in these international deals are associated with favorable economic conditions in foreign buyers' home markets relative to the U.S. We also find positive abnormal returns for buyers, albeit smaller than seller returns, but no significant difference between buyer returns in cross-border and domestic transactions.     

The Design of Financial Policies in Corporate Spin-offs

We examine differences in financial leverage between parentand spun-off firms that emerge from corporate spin-offs. Ourtests control for past financing choices and the costs of adjustingcapital structure, factors that can obscure cross-sectionalpatterns among firms' target leverage ratios. We find that firmsthat emerge from spin-offs with more financial leverage havea higher cash flow return on assets, lower variability of industryoperating income, and a greater proportion of fixed assets.The positive relation between profitability and the use of financialleverage, in a setting that is free of pecking order effects,is particularly important because it contrasts with existingevidence. Our results indicate that the ability to cover debtpayments and default-related costs are important determinantsof the use of financial leverage, as implied by the trade-offtheory of capital structure. We find no evidence that managerialincentives or governance characteristics affect the differencein leverage ratios in firms that emerge from spin-offs.     

Capital Structure and Assets: Effects of an Implicit Collateral

This paper analyses a firm's capital structure choice when assets have outside value. Valuable assets implicitly provide a collateral and increase tax shield exploitation. The key feature in this paper is asset value uncertainty, implying that it is unknown ex ante whether the equity holders ex post optimally sell the assets or re‐optimise the capital structure. Ex ante, more uncertain asset value decreases leverage, but not firm value, and selling the assets becomes less likely. Firms should tend to invest in assets whose value is less correlated to changes in earnings and, in addition, asset sales are less likely when this correlation is low.     

Investment‐Based Corporate Bond Pricing

A standard assumption of structural models of default is that firms' assets evolve exogenously. In this paper, we examine the importance of accounting for investment options in models of credit risk. In the presence of financing and investment frictions, firm‐level variables that proxy for asset composition are significant determinants of credit spreads beyond leverage and asset volatility, because they capture the systematic risk of firms' assets. Cross‐sectional studies of credit spreads that fail to control for the interdependence of leverage and investment decisions are unlikely to be very informative. Such frictions also give rise to a realistic term structure of credit spreads in a production economy.     

Leverage constraints and asset prices: Insights from mutual fund risk taking

Prior theory suggests that time variation in the degree to which leverage constraints bind affects the pricing kernel. We propose a measure for this leverage constraint tightness by inverting the argument that constrained investors tilt their portfolios to riskier assets. We show that the average market beta of actively managed mutual funds—intermediaries facing leverage restrictions—captures their desire for leverage and thus the tightness of constraints. Consistent with theory, it strongly predicts returns of the betting-against-beta portfolio, and is a priced risk factor in the cross-section of mutual funds and stocks. Funds with low exposure to the factor outperform high-exposure funds by 5% annually, and for stocks this difference reaches 7%. Our results show that the tightness of leverage constraints has important implications for asset prices.     

Keep on smiling? The pricing of Quanto options when all covariances are stochastic

The paper introduces a model for the joint dynamics of asset prices which can capture both a stochastic correlation between stock returns as well as between stock returns and volatilities (stochastic leverage). By relying on two factors for stochastic volatility, the model allows for stochastic leverage and is thus able to explain time-varying slopes of the smiles. The use of Wishart processes for the covariance matrix of returns enables the model to also capture stochastic correlations between the assets. Our model offers an integrated pricing approach for both Quanto and plain-vanilla options on the stock as well as the foreign exchange rate. We derive semi-closed form solutions for option prices and analyze the impact of state variables. Quanto options offer a significant exposure to the stochastic covariance between stock prices and exchange rates. In contrast to standard models, the smile of stock options, the smile of currency options, and the price differences between Quanto options and plain-vanilla options can change independently of each other.