Asymmetric-information and principal-agent problems as sources of value in FSLIC-Assisted acquisitions of insolvent thrifts

This study uses a two-factor market-model to estimate excess returns around 43 announcements of FSLIC-assisted thrift mergers and 66 announcements of unassisted thrift mergers. These estimated excess returns are then used to test hypotheses about asymetric-information and principal-agent problem in the thrift resolution process as sources of value in these mergers. The results show that acquirers in assisted transactions earned positive and statistically significant excess returns of approximately 2 percent, whereas acquirers in unassisted transactions earned excess returns that are not significantly different from zero; however, the excess returns in the assisted mergers are quantitatively small. For the 43 assisted mergers, estimated excess returns imply aggregate wealth transfers of only $13 million as compared with $2.3 billion in FSLIC assistance that were granted in these transactions. These findings suggest that the FSLIC-assisted transactions were reasonably well structured and that the assistance granted did not result in large wealth transfers to acquirers of insolvent institutions. Finally, the study provides evidence that informational asymmetries and principal-agent problems in the thrift resolution process were significant sources of excess returns for the acquirers receiving FSLIC assistance.The views reflected in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent policies of Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or the Federal Housing Finance Board. Helpful comments were recieved from participants in the Finance Workshop at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, George Benston, Richard Brown, Jennifer Conrad, Sally Davies, Mark Flannery, Edward Kane, David Ravenscraft, and Lawrence J. White.