Bank profitability during recessions

This paper contributes to the literature on the relation between bank profitability and economic activity. When allowing for stronger co-movement of bank profit with economic activity during deep recessions, we find a much larger impact of output growth on bank profitability than commonly found in the literature. Among the different components of bank profit, loan losses are the main driver of this result. We also find long-term interest rates in previous years to be important determinants of bank profit in times of high economic growth. Our findings are robust to the use of aggregate or individual bank data.     

Bank deregulation is better than mergers

The effects of mergers on bank costs, prices, profits, and market competition are compared with the effects from concurrent deregulation of branching restrictions. The title states our conclusion: deregulation has been better than mergers in Spain. Even so, improved post-deregulation economic conditions accounted for most of the improvement in costs and profits while deregulation had its greatest impact on improving competition. Analysis indicates that direct measures of market competition—rate spread, mark-up, and Lerner index—are more informative than the standard profit–structure relationship.     

银行跨国并购战略与整合管理研究

我国入世保护期已经结束,银行业已全面对外开放,在跨国并购浪潮的推动下,外资银行无疑会把并购作为进入我国金融市场的途径之一.中国银行业也将通过并购的方式实施"走出去"的跨国经营战略,打造自己的海外版图.本文从国际银行业跨国并购实践和实证研究成果出发,分析了银行跨国并购战略实施的现实意义和面临的困惑,突出快速并购整合的重要性;分析了沟通、人、文化、IT系统、行政审批、发展压力等影响银行跨国并购快速整合的主要因素;提出了积极的整合启动、严谨的整合计划和严肃的计划实施、专业的整合团队、快速成功整合为导向的整合管理文化的塑造、充分的整合资源保障和智力支持等快速成功整合策略.     

国内商业银行渠道整合及策略研究

上世纪90年代以来,国内商业银行的渠道建设取得了显著成就,目前已初步建立起物理渠道与虚拟渠道相互补充、共同发展的渠道体系,某些渠道已经达到了国际先进水平。但是,由于历史和体制等方面的原因,商业银行渠道建设中还存在着诸多问题,尤其是渠道分割、渠道冲突以及客户信息难以共享等问题比较突出,应将其作为一个系统,运用系统的理论和方法加以整合,使所有渠道之间实现互联互动、信息共享和交叉服务,以化解多渠道间存在的各种矛盾,提高商业银行的核心能力和竞争优势。     

Liquidity mergers

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions “liquidity mergers,” since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur when industry-level asset-specificity is high and firm-level asset-specificity is low. We analyze firms' liquidity policies as a function of real asset reallocation, examining the trade-offs between cash and credit lines. We verify the model's prediction that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur in industries in which assets are industry-specific, but transferable across firms. We also show that firms are more likely to use credit lines (relative to cash) in industries in which liquidity mergers are more frequent.     

Decomposing the market,industry, and firm components of profitability: implications for forecasts of profitability

Academics and practitioners frequently highlight that overall market and industry performance is an important aspect of a firm’s profitability. However, few studies allow for the decomposition of a firm’s profitability into market, industry, and idiosyncratic components, and those that do often assume that the market and industry components are cross-sectional constants. In this study, we allow for variation in firm-specific sensitivities to market, industry, and idiosyncratic economic shocks, and then assess whether and when this decomposition results in improved forecasts of profitability. For the overall sample, we find significant improvements in terms of the magnitude of forecast errors and the frequency with which forecasts based on the decomposed values are superior versus forecasts using only total profitability. Across the sample as a whole, decomposing profitability in the forecasting process results in more accurate forecasts greater than two-thirds of the time (increasing to almost 80% within certain subsamples). Our results provide strong support for the role that firm-specific measures of market and industry profitability play in predicting a firm’s future performance, as well as highlighting settings where the decomposition provides the greatest benefit in terms of predicting future changes in profitability.     

Accounting for mergers and reverse mergers: An instructional assignment using SEC Form 10-K and S-4 disclosures

This instructional assignment explores two real-world business combinations, focusing on contextual factors surrounding the merger as well as accounting recognition by the legal acquirer. The business combinations studied in this assignment are Exxon Mobil Corporation’s (2010) acquisition of XTO Energy Inc. and the 2010 reverse merger between RRI Energy, Inc. and Mirant Corporation. Students must utilize disclosures in Forms 10-K and S-4 to: (1) investigate the reasons behind the merger, (2) examine the criteria used for determination of the “accounting acquirer” (in the case of RRI Energy and Mirant), and finally (3) prepare the entries to combine the firms at the time of merger. Students must learn the basics of reverse-acquisition accounting from relevant authoritative pronouncements as well as study the legal environment surrounding business combinations. Targeted for Advanced Accounting courses, this instructional assignment meets calls from the accounting profession and the Accounting Education Exchange Commission (1990) for instructors to integrate real-world problems that capture complex business transactions into the course curriculum.     

Liquidity and firm characteristics: Evidence from mergers and acquisitions

We explore factors affecting liquidity by examining the relation between liquidity changes and changes in firm characteristics around mergers and acquisitions. We find that spreads decline as the number of analysts, number of shareholders, number of market makers, firm size, and volume increase or as volatility decreases. Increased volume and firm size, and decreased volatility, are associated with increased depth. We find no evidence diversifying and non-diversifying mergers affect liquidity differently. We note that mergers and acquisitions are associated with reductions, on average, in spreads but that the reductions are fully explained by the accompanying changes in firm characteristics.     

对"银税一体化"工作的反刍

推进“银税一体化”(以下简称银税工作),深化税收征管改革在税务系统中已全面展开。这种全新的征管模式在运行过程中,势必会和传统的征收方式和税收体制发生矛盾和冲突。因此,迫切需要我们用一种全新的思维去面对和探讨,研究新的办法,使银税工作更加完善,从而更好地全面实现税收工作的科技加管理。     

Leverage adjustment after mergers and acquisitions

Australian firms have leverage targets. Speeds of adjustment to a target capital structure are higher than previously published estimates when there are major disruptions to firms’ leverage ratios. Firms exploit company‐specific characteristics to achieve these targets. Profitability and cash levels are important drivers of the speeds of adjustment. Firms, which have lower profitability or higher cash levels, appear to adjust faster.     

Stakeholder rights and economic performance: The profitability of nonprofits

This paper explores whether ownership matters in a fundamental sense by comparing the performance of stockholder-owned firms with the much less analyzed nonprofit firms. No stakeholder has residual cash flow rights in nonprofit firms, and the control rights are held by customers, employees, and community citizens. Accounting for differences in size and risk and comparing only firms in the same industry, we find that stockholder-owned firms do not outperform nonprofit firms. This result is consistent with the notin that the monitoring function of stockholders may be successfully replaced by other mechanisms. We find evidence that product market competition may play this role as a substitute monitoring mechanism.     

中国银行业:盈利能力提升,持续创新转型

六年回顾:中国银行业盈利能力止跌回升 日前,安永发布了一份名为《中国上市银行2016年回顾及未来展望》的报告.报告显示,2016年37家上市银行(包括五大国有银行、股份制银行、城商行、农商行、邮储银行等)实现净利润合计人民币14,531.75亿元,比2015年度增长3.65%,增速上升了0.80个百分点,这是上市银行自2011年以来,净利润增速首次出现回升.而已披露2017年一季度业绩的28家上市银行(包括25家A股上市银行以及三家H股上市银行)净利润合计同比增长3.69%,比2016年一季度同期上升0.98个百分点,增速进一步回升.     

Shareholder litigation in mergers and acquisitions

Using hand-collected data, we examine the targeting of shareholder class action lawsuits in merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, and the associations of these lawsuits with offer completion rates and takeover premia. We find that M&A offers subject to shareholder lawsuits are completed at a significantly lower rate than offers not subject to litigation, after controlling for selection bias, different judicial standards, major offer characteristics, M&A financial and legal advisor reputations as well as industry and year fixed effects. M&A offers subject to shareholder lawsuits have significantly higher takeover premia in completed deals, after controlling for the same factors. Economically, the expected rise in takeover premia more than offsets the fall in the probability of deal completion, resulting in a positive expected gain to target shareholders. However, in general, target stock price reactions to bid announcements do not appear to fully anticipate the positive expected gain from potential litigation. We find that during a merger wave characterized by friendly single-bidder offers, shareholder litigation substitutes for the presence of a rival bidder by policing low-ball bids and forcing offer price improvement by the bidder.     

Disaggregating operating and financial activities: implications for forecasts of profitability

Researchers, practitioners, and standard setters emphasize the importance of disaggregating financial statements into operating and financial activities. However, there is a lack of research demonstrating that this disaggregation improves forecasts of profitability. In this study, we consider whether and when the operating/financial disaggregation improves forecasts of profitability. Contrary to the use of an aggregate forecasting approach by most related prior research, we first show that the operating/financial disaggregation only provides forecast improvement over a benchmark model incorporating aggregate information when the components forecasting approach is used. We also compare the operating/financial disaggregation to the unusual/infrequent disaggregation required by US GAAP. We find that the operating/financial disaggregation yields less accurate forecasts than the unusual/infrequent disaggregation. However, when using the components forecasting approach, we find that the combination of both disaggregations improves forecasts of profitability. Finally, we document that the incremental usefulness of the operating/financial disaggregation relative to a benchmark model incorporating aggregate information is a function of growth and accounting conservatism. Overall, our study provides timely evidence concerning how analysts and investors might best use the operating/financial disaggregation for forecasting profitability.     

Current trends in hospital mergers and acquisitions

Healthcare reform will impact hospital consolidation in three key areas: Payment rates will decrease, indirectly encouraging consolidation by forcing hospitals to find new ways to reduce costs and increase negotiating clout with suppliers and payers. The cost of doing business will increase as hospitals spend more on compliance, technology, and physician employment. The ACO model will encourage hospital network formation by rewarding integrated healthcare systems that can reduce costs and improve quality.     

The profitability of carry trades

The uncovered interest parity (UIP) condition suggests that carry trades whereby investors borrow in the low interest rate currency and invest in the high interest rate currency should not result in excess profits over the long run. In this paper, we test the significance of the conventional empirical failure of UIP condition. Using the four bilateral pound parities we fail to detect significant excess carry trade profits for the yen, euro and swiss franc–pound parities. The only parity for which the carry trade consistently makes excess profits is the dollar–pound parity. This result is somewhat surprising as this is the currency pair with the lowest interest rate differential. We are extremely grateful for the anonymous referee’s comments on this paper.     

Adopting better corporate governance: Evidence from cross-border mergers

Cross-border mergers allow firms to alter the level of protection they provide to their investors, because target firms usually import the corporate governance system of the acquiring company by law. Therefore, cross-border mergers provide a natural experiment to analyze the effects of changes in corporate governance on firm value, and on an industry as a whole. We construct measures of the change in investor protection induced by cross-border mergers in a sample of 7330 ‘national industry years’ (spanning 39 industries in 41 countries in the period 1990–2001. We find that the Tobin's Q of an industry — including its unmerged firms — increases when firms within that industry are acquired by foreign firms coming from countries with better shareholder protection and better accounting standards. We present evidence that the transfer of corporate governance practices through cross-border mergers is Pareto improving. Firms that can adopt better practices willingly do so, and the market assigns more value to better protection.     

徽商银行:"变大"与"做小"

当徽商选择摒弃小银行模式时,他们在绕开小银行发展诸多不利因素的同时也迎来了更高的目标和更多的挑战。     

Understanding partial mergers in Japan

Since the late 1990s, Japan has witnessed a substantial increase of partial mergers where two or more firms spin off whole operations in the same business and combine them into a joint venture (JV). This paper provides the first academic evidence on this phenomenon. I find that partial mergers normally occur as a response to negative economic shocks by firms that are larger and more diversified than firms in total mergers. An event study identifies positive and significant returns to partial merger announcements. Unlike total mergers whose value accrues mostly to the shareholders of small (acquired) firms, large and small firms in partial mergers receive comparable returns, which are particularly large to firms forming an equally owned JV. This study also finds that partial mergers are often ex post transformed, with equity sale between partners being the main source of change.