The Long Run Abnormal Performance of UK Acquirers and the Free Cash Flow Hypothesis

Abstract:   Evidence from recent US and UK studies reveals a pattern of poor long run post acquisition performance by acquiring firms. One explanation, due to Jensen (1986) is that acquirers with an excess of free cash flow (FCF) will have a propensity to squander this on wasteful investments, including take‐overs. In this paper, using a dataset of UK take‐overs and proxies for free cash flow similar to those used by Lang, Stulz and Walking (1991) , we find no support for the FCF hypothesis and show that this conclusion is robust to the model of long run returns employed. Contrary to the free cash flow hypothesis there is evidence that acquirers with high free cash flow perform better than acquirers with low free cash flow. Although not consistent with the Jensen hypothesis, this evidence is compatible with the emerging UK evidence that shows cash flow‐to‐price measures are associated with market returns.     

基于自由现金流代理成本假说的投资行为研究

基于自由现金流代理成本假说，本文利用我国上市公司（A股）制造业1998-2003年数据对上市公司投资行为进行实证研究。研究结果表明，（1）经理持股比例越低，代理问题越严重，投资现金流相关性越高。（2）企业融资约束程度越轻，代理问题越严重，投资现金流相关性越高，经理越容易建造“企业帝国”。具体表现为：国家股比例越高，投资现金流相关性越高；净资产税后利润率越高，投资现金流相关性越高；企业规模越大，投资现金流相关性越高。建立有效的公司治理机制可以解决有关代理问题。     

Investment Opportunities,Free Cash Flow and Stock Valuation Effects of Corporate Investments: The Case of Taiwanese Investments in China

This paper examines the importance of investment opportunities and free cash flow in assessing the stock market reaction to announcements of cross-border investments in China by Taiwanese firms. Our results support the investment opportunities hypothesis that Taiwanese firms with favorable investment opportunities have significantly positive response to the announcements of their investments in China whereas firms with poor investment opportunities have negative response to such announcements. In contrast, we find no support for the free cash flow hypothesis. Our findings add to the understanding of the determinants of the wealth effect of cross-border investment decisions in the Asia-Pacific region.     

自由现金流、现金股利与中国上市公司过度投资

处于经理人控制之下的自由现金流有可能被投入到损害公司价值的非盈利项目上，从而导致过度投资。股利代理成本理论认为，较高的股利支付水平可以迫使经理人“吐出”自由现金流，从而降低企业自由现金流代理成本。但本文实证研究表明，中国上市公司过度投资程度与现金股利支付水平无关。其原因在于，上市公司股利政策受到监管层政策驱动因素的影响，造成股利政策扭曲，并被“异化”为大股东“利益输送”的一种手段。     

Free Cash Flow, Golden Parachutes, and the Discipline of Takeover Activity

We conjecture that golden parachutes are initiated when the agency cost of free cash flow is most severe. We examine the relation between golden parachutes and investment levels in firms that have been successfully acquired. Our results support these three conclusions. First, target firms overinvest prior to an acquisition when golden parachutes are present. Second, the acquirers of targets with golden parachutes reduce investment subsequent to the takeover. Third, the reversal in capital investment by the combined firm is correlated with the magnitude of the target's pre-acquisition overinvestment. The latter findings indicate the takeover acts as a disciplining mechanism with the acquirer reversing the target overinvestment subsequent to the acquisition     

Is it Free Cash Flow, Tax Savings, or Neither?An Empirical Confirmation of Two Leading Going-private Explanations:The Case of ReLBOs

Firms which 'go private' via a leveraged buyout (LBO) retain the option to 'go public' again, a process known as a reverse LBO transaction. This paper examines the rarer phenomenon of reLBOs; that is, the practice of going private via leveraged buyout, reobtaining public status through a new initial public offering, and then going private a second time. Among the several alternative hypotheses explaining LBOs, we focus on two prominent ones – free cash flow and tax savings – to explain reLBOs. With a sample of 21 reLBO firms, we find no empirical support for the free cash flow hypothesis but detect a significant relationship between the decision to go private for the second time and the tax savings potential of the firm.     

Earnings, Cash Flows and Security Returns Over Long Return Intervals: Analysis and UK Evidence

The aim of this paper is to provide a fuller understanding of the process linking security returns and accounting data by focusing on the effect of long return intervals on the association between security returns and earnings and cash flow variables. First, we develop a theoretical basis for empirical analysis of the relationship between security returns and cash flow data over long return intervals. Second, we carry out empirical analysis of both the information content of cash flow variables and the incremental information content of accounting earnings and cash flows using UK data over the period 1985–92 for annual, two year and four year return intervals. Our results provide strong evidence of the valuation relevance of cash flow information for the dataset examined.     

The Predictive Ability of Direct Method Cash Flow Information

This research examines the predictive ability of direct method cash flow information for firms that use the direct method in their cash flow statements. We use cross sectional and pooled time series regressions to predict operating cash flow data and assess relative predictive ability. Principal findings are: (1) past period direct method cash flow data predict future operating cash flow better than indirect method cash flow data; (2) past period direct method gross operating cash flows predict future net operating cash flow better than past period net operating cash flow; (3) measurement error exists in estimates of direct method operating cash flows from other financial statement data; (4) past operating cash flows predict future operating cash flows better than earnings and accruals.     

The Wealth Effect of Domestic Joint Ventures: Evidence from Taiwan

This study presents important international evidence by examining the wealth effect of domestic joint ventures by Taiwanese firms. In opposite to United States evidence, we find that announcements of domestic joint ventures by Taiwanese firms are, on average, associated with significantly negative abnormal stock returns. We also find that the stock market response to announced domestic joint ventures is significantly positively related to the announcing firms' investment opportunities, size of investment and debt ratio, and is significantly negatively related to the business relatedness variable. In contrast, free cash flow, firm size, relative firm size and managerial ownership are found to have no significant power in explaining the market response. Our results support the investment opportunities, synergy and complementarity hypotheses as well as a broad interpretation of the free cash flow hypothesis, but reject the absolute size, relative size and alignment-of-interests hypotheses. This study makes valuable contributions to the literature by providing the first direct evidence on the role of investment opportunities, synergy and alignment-of-interests in explaining the wealth effect of domestic joint ventures     

The Incremental Information Content of Accruals: Evidence Based on the Exponential Smoothing of Levels and Trends in Pre-Tax Earnings, Funds Flow and Cash Flow

By arranging the accrual accounting identity as a hierarchy of market response models, this paper investigates whether current and noncurrent accruals have incremental information content beyond earnings. The results indicate that the increase in explanatory power attributable to funds flow and cash flow disclosure can be improved upon by estimating the surprises in reported numbers by exponentially weighting prior values. The unexpected information simplifies to the weighted sum of deviations from the estimated level and estimated trend. Further improvements are obtained by allowing components of the error to vary with time and by company in a non-autoregressive, homoscedastic pooling scheme which takes account of the joint presence of time series disturbance and cross sectional disturbance.     

Stock Repurchase and Agency Problems: New Evidence in Taiwan's Stock Market

This paper explores stock repurchase and agency issues in an emerging market with special regulations. Using match samples, agency-related variables are investigated for pre- and postannouncement periods. Our empirical evidence demonstrates that stock repurchase is related to agency cost mitigation. Agency problems are also significantly related to the preannouncement undervaluation of stock repurchase, after controlling for the effects of growth opportunity and asymmetric information. Finally, a company with a higher ratio of expected repurchase or higher agency costs normally enjoys better market response upon announcement.     

An Analysis of Joint Effects of Investment Opportunity Set,Free Cash Flows and Size on Corporate Debt Policy

This study, based on a sample of 1869 observations from 1989 to 1993 for non-regulated U.S. firms, examines the association between investment opportunity set (IOS), free cash flows (FCF) and debt, and also tests whether firm size acts as a moderating variable on this association. The results show that there is a significantly positive association between FCF and debt for low IOS firms, which provide support to Jensen's (1986) control hypothesis. The results also show that the positive association between debt and high FCF for low IOS firms is more pronounced for large firms, suggesting that the firm size serves as a moderating variable on the association.     

The Impact of Mandated Cash Flow Disclosure on Bid‐Ask Spreads

Abstract:   This study provides evidence that mandatory cash flow disclosure required by Approved Australian Accounting Standard AASB 1026, Statement of Cash Flows (June 1992) was associated with a decline in bid‐ask spreads following the introduction of the regulation, even after controlling for changes in trading volume and price volatility. More pronounced decreases in bid‐ask spreads were associated with firms having lower correlations between reported CFO and estimates of CFO using balance sheet reconstructions. We conclude that mandatory cash flow disclosure reduces information asymmetry across market participants.     

The Relative Relevance of Cash Flow and Accrual Information for Solvency Assessments: A Multi‐Method Approach

This multi-method study reports the results of two complementary experiments investigating the relevance of cash flow and accrual information. A behavioural field experiment investigated differences in the accuracy of solvency assessments between commercial lending managers using cash flow information and those using accrual information. Results indicated that commercial lending managers using cash flow information made more accurate solvency assessments than managers using accrual information. Results of an archival quantitative modeling experiment complemented these results and indicated cash flow information had incremental information content beyond accrual information. Our results confirmed the decision-usefulness of cash flow information and supported the mandate of the Statement of Cash Flows.     

The Differences Between Stock Splits and Stock Dividends: Evidence on the Retained Earnings Hypothesis

Abstract:  This paper investigates stock dividends and stock splits on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange (CSE), which is of interest because several of the more recent explanations for a stock market reaction can be ruled out. The main findings are that the announcement effect of stock dividends as well as stock splits is closely related to changes in a firm's payout policy, but that the relationship differs for the two types of events. A stock dividend implies an increase in nominal share capital and hence a decrease in retained earnings. Firms announcing stock dividends finance growth entirely by debt (explaining the need for an increase in nominal share capital) and retained earnings. Basically all firms announcing a stock dividend with a split factor of less than two can also afford to increase their total cash dividends permanently, at least proportionally to the increase in share capital, leading to a significant announcement effect of 4.23%. Firms announcing a stock dividend with a split factor of two or more also increase total cash dividends permanently, but less than proportionally to the increase in share capital. This leads to an insignificant announcement effect of 0.08%. These findings support a retained earnings/signaling hypothesis. For stock splits, no separate announcement effect was found when a firm's payout policy was controlled for. This lends support to the idea that a stock split per se is a cosmetic event on the CSE and is also consistent with the fact that making a stock split on the CSE is virtually cost free.     

The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns: New Evidence from an Emerging Market

Over 300 factors have been found to explain the cross-section of expected stock returns. Empirical studies also show that findings from multifactor asset-pricing models have not been consistent in an emerging market. Using DuPont analysis and a residual income valuation model for 284 nonfinancial companies on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange during the period 2008–2014, findings suggest that the return on equity and its change are informative for stock returns in Vietnam. In addition, the level of capital turnover, financial cost ratio (FCR), and changes in capital and in the FCR contain incremental explanatory power for stock returns.     

Divergence of Cash Flow and Voting Rights,Opacity, and Stock Price Crash Risk: International Evidence

This study investigates whether and how the deviation of cash flow rights (ownership) from voting rights (control), or simply the ownership‐control wedge, influences the likelihood that extreme negative outliers occur in stock return distributions, which we refer to as stock price crash risk. We do so using a comprehensive panel data set of firms with a dual‐class share structure from 20 countries around the world for the period of 1995–2007. We predict and find that opaque firms with a large wedge are more crash prone than opaque firms with a small wedge. In addition, we predict and find that the positive relation between the wedge and crash risk is less pronounced for firms with more effective external monitoring and for firms with greater growth opportunities. The results of this study are broadly consistent with Jin and Myers’s theory that agency costs, combined with opacity, exacerbate stock price crash risk.     

The Theory-Practice Gap in Capital Budgeting: Evidence from the United Kingdom

We report the results of a survey of capital budgeting techniques used by United Kingdom firms. Where possible, the evidence is combined with data collected over a 22 year period to provide a basis for the discussion of causes of trends. We observe that there has been a substantial narrowing of the theory-practice gap in the use of project appraisal methods. The gap has also narrowed in other areas: the analysis of risk, inflation adjustment, capital budget preparation, WACC calculation and post-auditing. However, there are other elements of capital budgeting theory, e.g. probability and beta analysis which have been adopted by very few practising managers. We also discuss non-economic projects, capital rationing and hurdle rates.     

现金持有量的现金流敏感性实证研究:来自2000—2009年食品饮料行业上市公司的证据

本文对2000—2009年中国食品饮料行业上市公司的样本数据进行了实证研究,发现小规模公司现金持有量对其内部现金流表现出一定程度的敏感性,而大规模公司的现金持有量则对其内部现金流没有表现出敏感性。原因可能在于小规模公司比大规模公司面临更强的融资约束。