Investigating the Valuation Effects of Announcements of Voluntary Corporate Selloffs

While there has been an abundance of empirical research on the subject of mergers and acquisitions, little research exists on a closely related topic—voluntary corporate selloffs. This study examines the effect on shareholder wealth of the announcement by management of an investment decision to voluntarily sell part of its operations to another firm. Positive abnormal returns are found to occur on the announcement date. However, it is found that such selloffs generally occur after a period of abnormally negative returns, suggesting the announcement is preceded by the release of negative information about the firm.     

Do SMEs Benefit from Unconventional Monetary Policy and How? Microevidence from the Eurozone

We study the impact of the announcement of the European Central Bank's (ECB's) Outright Monetary Transactions Program on small firms’ access to finance using a matched firm‐bank data set from eight Eurozone countries. We find that following the announcement, credit access improved relatively more for firms borrowing from banks with high balance sheet exposures to impaired sovereign debt, with such firms less likely to be refused a loan or to be price rationed. Loan terms also improved as manifested by lengthening of loan maturities. Unconventional monetary policy has a positive impact on firms’ investment and profitability, while its effect on firm innovation is weaker.     

Competing for Securities Underwriting Mandates: Banking Relationships and Analyst Recommendations

We investigate whether analyst behavior influenced banks' likelihood of winning underwriting mandates for a sample of 16,625 U.S. debt and equity offerings in 1993–2002. We control for the strength of the issuer's investment banking relationships with potential competitors for the mandate, prior lending relationships, and the endogeneity of analyst behavior and the bank's decision to provide analyst coverage. Although analyst behavior was influenced by economic incentives, we find no evidence that aggressive analyst behavior increased their bank's probability of winning an underwriting mandate. The main determinant of the lead‐bank choice is the strength of prior underwriting and lending relationships.