Private debt, unused credit lines, and seasoned equity offerings

We study a sample of SEOs to examine the impact of private debt and unused credit lines on SEO underpricing and long-run stock and operating performance. We do not find significant effects of private debt financing on SEO underpricing and long-run stock underperformance. However, firms with more bank debt and unused lines of credit exhibit significantly better pre-issue operating performance. Changes in operating performance from the pre-issue year to the post-issue period are negatively related to the size of unused credit lines. Capital spending decreases with the size of unused credit lines in the year prior to SEOs, but increases following SEOs. Our overall evidence suggests that the post-issue operating performance we observed may be a result of overinvestment, which is enhanced by unused credit lines.     

Venture capitalist participation and the post-issue operating performance of IPO firms

Previous studies have identified the value-added potential of venture capitalist monitoring in the initial public offering (IPO) market. We test this proposition by comparing the post-issue operating performance of venture capitalist-backed IPOs with a matched sample of non-venture capitalist-backed IPOs. We find that venture capitalist-backed IPO firms exhibit relatively superior post-issue operating performance compared to non-venture capital-backed IPO firms. Further, the market appears to recognize the value of monitoring by venture capitalists as reflected in the higher valuations at the time of the IPO. Finally, we find that proxies for the quality of venture capitalist monitoring are positively related to post-issue operating performance.     

How Do Financial Constraints Relate to Financial Reporting Quality? Evidence from Seasoned Equity Offerings

This paper examines how constraints on firms’ financing capacity relate to managers’ discretionary accounting choices. Three hypotheses of earnings management – the opportunism hypothesis, the rational expectations hypothesis, and the signaling hypothesis – predict that constrained firms engage in greater upward earnings management than unconstrained firms when selling equity. Using a sample of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) announced between 1983 and 2014, I find support for this prediction. The relation between financial constraints and earnings management is robust to including controls such as offer size, growth opportunities, analyst following, and chief executive officer equity holdings, as well as to using the instrumental variable approach. Investors’ reaction around and following the SEO announcement supports the rational expectations hypothesis. I find that aggressive earnings management by constrained issuers is associated with lower SEO announcement returns but is not followed by negative abnormal returns in the long run. The evidence suggests that constrained issuers’ aggressive use of income-increasing accruals is an outcome of managerial myopia caused by capital market pressure, not managerial opportunism intended to mislead investors.     

Information content of unexpected dividends under a semi-mandatory dividend policy: An empirical study of China

We examine the information content of unexpected dividend changes under China’s unique semi-mandatory dividend policy, which requires firms to pay a minimum amount of cash dividends before they can undertake seasoned equity offerings (SEO). The cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) are significantly positive in response to unexpected dividend increase for non-SEO firms, but they are not significantly different from zero for SEO firms. For non-SEO firms, there is a significant positive relation between future earnings and unexpected dividend increases, but the relation is not significant for SEO firms. However, when considering additional refinancing costs for SEO firms caused by the mandatory dividend policy, higher dividend payments are associated with lower future earnings. Overall, our findings are consistent with both the dividend signaling theory and the negative effects of SEOs on a firm’s value.     

CEO compensation and the seasoned equity offering decision

Empirical research on seasoned equity offerings indicates that the decision to make an SEO typically engenders a decline in firm value, as investors interpret this decision as a signal of poor financial health or that the stock is overpriced. Here, we add to the literature by analyzing the short‐term market reaction to SEO announcements and the chief executive officer's link to firm performance (i.e. the proportion of CEO equity‐based compensation). Results support the hypothesis that investors are more likely to view the announcement of an SEO as a last resort source of capital when the proportion of CEO equity‐based compensation is high. In such cases of high equity‐based compensation, our findings indicate that the SEO announcement provides an incremental signal of financial distress above that provided by financial statements. We also find this relationship (last resort signal) to be stronger when large information asymmetries exist between management and investors. Thus, managers should consider the ramifications of executive compensation structure when considering whether to make an SEO. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Entrepreneurial human capital,equity concentration and firm performance: Evidence from companies listed on China's Growth Enterprise Market

In this work, a sample of firms listed on China's Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) is employed to investigate the impact of human capital and equity concentration on firm performance. It shows that entrepreneurs' education level, industry experience and technical professional background have a positive impact on firm performance. Moreover, the higher the equity concentration, the better a firm's performance. Entrepreneurs with rich industry experience and a technical professional background tend to collect and condense equity, thereby increasing equity concentration. These findings reveal the relationship between entrepreneurial human capital and ownership concentration and enrich research on firm performance.     

Explanation for market response to seasoned equity offerings

In this paper, we use a multivariate framework to extend the recent univariate seasoned equity offering (SEO) research that investigated the valuation impact of inside ownership. Our multivariate findings re-enforce and add to the univariate findings as we show that the inside ownership level is a consistent factor in accounting for short-run and long-run returns around SEOs, while the decrease in inside ownership has no impact on short-run returns but influences long-run returns in a manner inconsistent with signaling theory. Compared to prior research, our regression tests do a much better job of accounting for returns associated with SEO announcements. For short-run regression tests, the four major factors associated with superior stock returns are: lower underpricing; greater profitability prior to SEO; lower inside ownership level; and, less stock price variability prior to SEO. For long-run regression tests, the four major conditions linked to superior returns are: greater profitability prior to SEO; smaller inside ownership level; relative size of the offering; and, greater decrease in inside ownership level.     

创新驱动发展与企业劳动收入份额

选取2012—2020年沪深A股上市公司为样本,实证检验创新驱动发展与企业劳动收入份额之间的关系,以及高管股权激励和员工持股对上述关系的调节效应。研究发现：企业创新驱动发展能够有效提高企业劳动收入份额;实施高管股权激励和员工持股计划均能显著增强上述关系。进一步研究发现,盈利水平发挥了部分中介效应,且当企业处于成长期和衰退期、市场化程度较高的地区以及为非国有企业时,上述关系更显著。研究结论表明,特别是处于成长期与衰退期、市场化程度较高地区的企业,以及非国有企业,大力推动创新驱动发展,并辅之以高管股权激励和员工持股计划,可以提高企业劳动收入份额,实现和谐发展,推进共同富裕目标实现。     

Long-term performance of divesting firms and the effect of managerial ownership

We study the long-term performance of firms that divest assets to assess whether gains arise from reducing agency costs. We find that divesting firms underperform control firms before the divestiture and outperform control firms following the divestiture. The poor performance experienced by divesting firms is unrelated to managerial ownership, but the post-divestiture improvement in performance is strongly related to stock ownership by the CEO. The results support the argument that divestitures remove assets that generate negative synergies and that managerial ownership provides strong incentives to improve operations following the divestiture.     

企业股权结构与股权转让效率——以中国大陆A股上市公司为例

通过对中国大陆A股上市公司股权转让数据的分析表明,企业股权转让更容易发生在股权较为分散的公司中,但是股权转让后的企业效率并没有明显的改善,公司控制权的转移往往对企业绩效产生负面的影响。由此可见,通过鼓励企业股权结构分散化并对控制权私人收益加以必要的管制,对提高股权转让的效率将起到非常重要的作用。     

Ownership concentration,modified audit opinion,and auditor switch: New evidence and method

This study investigates: 1) how does the ownership structure of listed firms influence the relation between their earnings management behavior and auditor opinion; 2) how does the ownership structure influence the relation between the auditor opinion and auditor switch. We find that the level of listed firms’ earnings management is positively associated with the propensity of being issued modified audit opinions (MAOs) by auditors when their ownership structure is highly concentrated. However, the issuance of MAOs is not associated with the auditor switch under such condition. On the contrary, a high level of earnings management is not associated with the propensity of being issued MAOs when firms’ ownership structure is less concentrated. Further, the issuance of MAOs may increase the likelihood of auditor switch. The empirical findings suggest that auditors may cater for the preferences of the real controller of listed firms when issuing audit opinions. Moreover, the “auditor opinion shopping” behavior by listed firms is also affected by listed firms’ ownership structure.     

OWNERSHIP CONCENTRATION AND FIRM PERFORMANCE IN EMERGING MARKETS: A META‐ANALYSIS

The literature concerned with relations between ownership concentration and corporate performance in emerging markets presents conflicting theoretical predications and inconclusive empirical results. We use meta‐analytical techniques to integrate the diverse empirical findings and investigate factors contribute to the inconsistencies in the empirical evidence. Using 419 correlations collected from 42 primary studies of listed corporations in 18 emerging markets, heterogeneity tests show that only a small proportion of the variation in reported ownership concentration–performance relations can be attributed to sampling error. Our meta‐regressions reveal how population differences, researchers’ modeling choices, and inadequate treatment of endogeneity explain a large portion of the true heterogeneity. After adjusting for these effects, we find ownership concentration has negative relation with firm performance across countries. Our results emphasize the importance of model specification and methods of addressing endogeneity, and support further comparative study of the ownership concentration–corporate performance relation between countries with seemingly similar corporate governance environments.     

Ownership Concentration,Institutional Development and Firm Performance in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper analyzes the relationship of ownership concentration and firm performance in the context of different institutional environments in 28 Central and Eastern European transition economies. We focus on private, non‐listed firms that have been largely neglected by the extant literature. Using the BEEPS data for the period from 2002 to 2009 we find an inverted u‐shaped relation of ownership concentration and firm performance for those firms that operate in non‐EU‐member countries as well as those firms that are situated in less developed institutional systems. We interpret these findings as evidence for a classic agency problem in the lower part of the ownership concentration distribution that is dominated by a ‘private benefits of control’ problem with rising ownership concentration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-run underperformance following private equity placements: The role of growth opportunities

Our results show that the post-offering performance of private equity issuers is related to growth opportunities. We find significant long-run underperformance in stock returns following private placements only for firms with high Tobin's q. High-q firms experience not only poor stock price performance but also poor operating performance. Low-q firms, in contrast, do not display significant stock price or operating underperformance. We further examine three potential explanations for this relation: over-investment in assets by managers, investor skewness preference, and over-optimism about earnings prospects. Our results are consistent with the view that investors are overly optimistic about the prospects of high growth firms.     

A survey of enterprise reforms in China: The way forward

The strategic importance of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector to the Chinese economy cannot be underestimated, thus the success of SOE reform is a significant factor in China's future economic prosperity. The dilemma facing state authorities is to develop market-orientated corporations while at the same time coping with potentially high unemployment and a range of equity and social justice issues. This paper presents an analysis of the current issues in SOE reform in China, drawing on relevant empirical evidence, and proposes a strategic direction and a framework for reform that challenges the recently announced program of privatization of listed SOEs. The literature indicates that state ownership is generally negatively correlated to performance. Conversely, Legal Person ownership positively influences performance. Other forms of private ownership are generally positively correlated to performance, with institutional ownership showing significant promise. Consequently, the divesture of state ownership is recommended and could be accomplished over three or four tranches. The state could divest its ownership by auction to strategic investors, both domestic and foreign, and in the next tranche an auction to the broad populace through units in mutual funds. The final proposed tranche being a distribution to nationwide pension funds to support retirement schemes, which should be made nationwide. Finally, listed firms should also issue shares as rights issues to offer present shareholders protection from dilution.     

The non-uniform pricing effect of employee stock options using quantile regression

Issuing employee stock options (ESOs) transfers equity claims from current stockholders to employees, and thereby dilutes existing shareholder interests. Because employees are motivated to exert additional effort toward better performance, the value of transferred ownership claims proxied by ESO expense represents a cost of generating firm value. There are several econometric issues, most notably including the fact that the disclosed ESO expense is an endogenous variable. Without controlling for the simultaneity problem, inferences based on results from OLS analyses may be misleading. More importantly, a considerable amount of ESO expense data is censored at zero. Such a censoring problem can make the population distribution severely skewed, resulting in estimation bias. Therefore, we need to take into account the censored data issue. No prior studies have considered these two issues simultaneously. Failure to control for both censoring problem and endogeneity could explain the inconsistent results documented in prior studies. In this paper, we use the two-stage quantile regression (QR) proposed by Amemiya (1982) and Powell (1983) to examine possible nonlinear relationships, especially whether conditionally higher-stock price (or better performing) firms show a stronger negative pricing effect of ESO expense (that is, the relation between ESO expense and share price) than conditionally lower-share price firms. Our results suggest that the linear regression model greatly underestimates this negative pricing effect at higher quantiles, so the nonlinear relationship is obscure when using the standard linear model. We also consider alternative interpretations as to why heterogeneity exists in the pricing effect of ESO expense and assess whether our results concur with these explanations.     

Acquiring firms' stock returns: Methods of payment,change in leverage,and management ownership

This study examines the effects of the method of payment, change in leverage, and management equity ownership on the acquiring firm's stock returns around the initial announcement date of the merger. Results indicate that stockholders of mergers financed with stocks suffer significant losses. These losses are larger when management ownership is low and smaller in mergers that resulted in acquiring firm leverage decreases. Stockholders of acquiring firms involved in cash mergers gain significant abnormal returns, provided that acquiring firms increase their leverage and that managerial ownership is high. When management equity ownership is low, leverage has no effect on stock returns. When management ownership is high, mergers which resulted in acquiring firm leverage increases have significant positive effects, and those which resulted in acquiring firm leverage decreases have negative but insignificant effects.     

募集资金投向对公司经营业绩的影响分析——来自上市公司的证据

本文以2000年、2001年、2002年通过首次发行股票、配股和增发来募集资金的上市公司为对象,对募集资金的投向与公司经营业绩之间的关系进行研究。结果表明:上市公司募集资金正常投向的比率与上市公司的经营业绩显著正相关,正常投向中主业投资有利于公司经营业绩的提高;对外投资与公司经营业绩在第一年有显著相关关系,但不具有持续性;偿还债务与公司业绩之间有显著负相关关系。募集资金变更投向与公司经营业绩之间有显著负相关关系,募集资金变更为对外投资和募集资金闲置与公司经营业绩显著负相关。     

Large shareholders and firm value: Are high-tech firms different?

This paper explores the relationship between ownership structure and firm value in firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The results of the estimations, taking into account simultaneity and reverse causality, show that the relationship between ownership concentration and firm value differs across firms belonging to the sector of innovative technologies and more ‘mature’ firms. The results give support to the hypothesis that ‘mature’ firms with higher ownership concentration are likely to perform better than firms with more dispersed ownership. In contrast, in high-tech companies, with large share of knowledge related activities, higher ownership concentration is associated with lower firm value. This effect is robust to various alternative specifications.