Takeovers: English and American

Viewed against the backdrop of European company law generally, the UK and US systems of corporate governance are remarkably similar. However, there are several salient differences between the system, including the fact that the UK has a more robust and less regulated takeover market than the USA, while the USA is more permissive towards derivative litigation. This paper explains the differences as a function of politics. In the USA, where corporate law is dominated by state governments, the political forces aligned against hostile takeovers are quite potent, generating legislation and judicial decisions that have suppressed takeover activity. In the UK, with a more unitary system, the political forces play out differently, and the system accordingly generates rules more accommodating to unfriendly takeovers.     

Dividend Policy, Corporate Governance and the Managerial Entrenchment Hypothesis: An Empirical Analysis

This paper analyses the agency explanation for the cross-sectional variation of corporate dividend policy in the UK by looking at the managerial entrenchment hypothesis drawn from the agency literature. Consistent with predictions, a significant U-shaped relationship between dividend payout ratios and insider ownership is observed for a large (exceeding 600 firms) sample of UK companies and two distinct periods. These results strongly suggest the possibility of managerial entrenchment when insider ownership reaches a threshold of around 30%. Evidence is also presented that non-beneficial holdings by insiders can lead to entrenchment in conjunction with shares held beneficially.     

The 'Independence' of Expert Opinions in Corporate Takeovers: Agreeing With Directors' Recommendations

Abstract:   The impact of non‐audit services on auditor independence has been the recent focus of regulators worldwide. Using expert reports provided in Australian takeovers, this study investigates a context where the audit independence issue is reversed. As approximately a quarter of expert reports are prepared by the target firm's auditor, concerns have been expressed over the independence of the opinion provided. This paper finds that, relative to other experts, there is no difference in the rate at which experts with other business dealings with the target, including the target's auditor, provide an opinion that agrees with that of directors. However, the capital market reaction around the release of the report indicates that reports produced by auditors are viewed as non‐independent.     

Dividend Payouts and Corporate Governance Quality: An Empirical Investigation

Motivated by agency theory, we investigate how a firm's overall quality of corporate governance affects its dividend policy. Using a large sample of firms with governance data from The Institutional Shareholder Services, we find that firms with stronger governance exhibit a higher propensity to pay dividends, and, similarly, dividend payers tend to pay larger dividends. The results are consistent with the notion that shareholders of firms with better governance quality are able to force managers to disgorge more cash through dividends, thereby reducing what is left for expropriation by opportunistic managers. We employ the two‐stage least squares approach to cope with possible endogeneity and still obtain consistent results. Our results are important as they show that corporate governance quality does have a palpable impact on critical corporate decisions such as dividend policy.     

代理问题、投资者保护与公司价值——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

本文以2002～2004年2238家上市公司为样本，按照最终控制人性质，将样本公司分为国有和民营金字塔控制两种主要类别，研究了代理问题在哪些公司较为严重，法律对于投资者保护是否能起到有效的治理作用。研究结果表明，国有和民营上市公司价值并无显著差异；随着政府层级的提升，国有控制公司价值提高；民营金字塔控制公司最终控制人所有权与控制权的分离对公司价值有负向作用；法治水平高的地区，其所属公司价值较高；海外上市提高了民营公司价值，但对国有公司的作用不显著；证券监管机构发挥的作用尚存不足。     

The Motivation for Takeovers in the UK

Abstract:  The motives for takeovers in the UK are investigated by examining the correlations between wealth gains for the target and both acquirer wealth gains and total wealth gains. The results are sensitive to whether the gains are measured over a long or short window, the method of measuring abnormal returns, and whether controls are included for the form of the bid consideration and the sign of total bid gains. There is evidence of bids motivated by synergy, but there is also evidence of the presence of hubris and weak evidence of bids with an agency motivation. Once controls for bid consideration and the sign of total gains are introduced the explanatory power of the models increases substantially and diversity of results about bid motivation also increases.     

Evaluating the Behavioural Performance of Alternative Logit Models: An Application to Corporate Takeovers Research

Abstract:  Econometric models involving a discrete outcome dependent variable abound in the finance and accounting literatures. However, much of the literature to date utilises a basic or standard logit model. Capitalising on recent developments in the discrete choice literature, we examine three advanced (or non-IID) logit models, namely: nested logit, mixed logit and latent class MNL. Using an illustration from corporate takeovers research, we compare the explanatory and predictive performance of each class of advanced model relative to the standard model. We find that in all cases the more advanced logit model structures, which correct for the highly restrictive IID and IIA conditions, provide significantly greater explanatory power than standard logit. Mixed logit and latent class MNL models exhibited the highest overall predictive accuracy on a holdout sample, while the standard logit model performed the worst. Moreover, the analysis of marginal effects of all models indicates that use of advanced models can lead to more insightful and behaviourally meaningful interpretations of the role and influence of explanatory variables and parameter estimates in model estimation. The results of this paper have implications for the use of more optimal logit structures in future research and practice.     

Dividends,Corporate Monitors and Agency Costs

We report new evidence on the hypothesis that dividends reduce agency costs. Consistent with dividends as a mechanism to reduce agency costs, we find that, on average, firms with a majority of strict outside directors on their boards experience significantly lower mean abnormal returns around the announcements of sizeable dividend increases. Our results are robust to multivariate controls for firm size, leverage, ownership, growth options, and change in dividend yield. However, we find no evidence that dividend increases reduce agency costs as measured by poison pills or outside blockholdings.     

Directors' Recommendations on Takeover Bids and the Management of Earnings: Evidence from Australian Takeovers

This article investigates whether Australian companies manage their earnings during takeover bids in a manner consistent with the earnings-management hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that directors who reject a bid use accrual accounting to increase current earnings, supporting their claim that the bid, relative to earnings, is inadequate. Likewise, directors who accept a bid are predicted to use accrual accounting to decrease current earnings. Overall, the results are not consistent with the earnings-management hypothesis. However, some components of unexpected accruals (our proxy for managed earnings) change in the direction predicted by the earnings-management hypothesis, although these changes are not statistically significant. Using industry adjusted performance measures the conclusion is that unexpected accruals are primarily a manifestation of poor financial performance of target firms in the period leading up to the takeover bid.     

Security Choice and Corporate Governance

The most efficient corporate governance structure will vary by firm depending on the costs and benefits of different governance mechanisms. For IPO firms, warrants might act as a substitute for other governance mechanisms ( Schultz, 1993 ). Alternatively, warrants might serve as a signal of high quality, and thus effectively governed, firms ( Chemmanur and Fulghieri, 1997 ), in which case they would act as a complement to other governance mechanisms. We test these competing hypotheses by examining a sample of unit IPO firms (firms issuing warrants with shares) matched to a comparable sample of shares-only firms and show that warrants act as a substitute for other governance mechanisms. The research is also of interest because it shows an interaction between the financing decisions of firms and their corporate governance that has not been documented previously.     

The Relevance of Western Corporate Governance in Mitigating Management Misconduct in Thailand

This article provides empirical evidence on the relevance of structures central to Western models of corporate governance in mitigating management misconduct in Thailand. We find no evidence supporting the effectiveness of Western-based corporate governance structures such as board independence, audit committee effectiveness, and separating the roles of CEO and Board Chair in limiting management misconduct. However, we do find evidence supportive of independent directors with more experience and longer tenure, the presence of institutional ownership, and concentrated controlling ownership in limiting management misconduct. This provides some support for the validity of resource dependency theory in an emerging economy setting.     

The Impact of Managerial Entrenchment on Agency Costs: An Empirical Investigation Using UK Panel Data

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between managerial entrenchment and agency costs for a large sample of UK firms over the period 1999–2005. To measure managerial entrenchment, we use detailed information on ownership and board structures and managerial compensation. We develop a managerial entrenchment index, which captures the extent to which managers have the ability and incentives to expropriate wealth from shareholders. Our findings, which are based on a dynamic panel data analysis, show that there is a strong negative relationship between managerial entrenchment and our inverse proxy for agency costs, namely asset turnover ratio. There is also evidence that short‐term debt and dividend payments work as effective corporate governance devices for UK firms. Finally, our findings reveal that agency costs are persistent over time. The results are robust to a number of alternative specifications, including varying measures of managerial entrenchment and agency costs.     

Derivatives Use, Corporate Governance, and Legislative Change: An Empirical Analysis of New Zealand Listed Companies

Abstract:   This paper examines if board composition has any systematic bearing on derivatives usage by New Zealand listed companies. We also test if derivative usage changed following the introduction of the new 1993 Companies Act. The Act raised expectations of directors' fiduciary responsibilities and the perceived risk of liability on outside directors for poor investment decisions. Using a dataset of listed New Zealand companies in 1994 and 1997, we find companies with higher growth opportunities and a greater proportion of outside directors were less likely to use financial derivatives following the introduction of the new Act. Our results supplement the US‐based literature on derivatives usage by illustrating that internal governance mechanisms can play a role in corporate derivatives policy, and that the legislative and regulatory environment may affect this role.     

国家治理与国家审计:基于国家建构理论的分析

基于福山的国家构建理论,本文从本源上对国家治理与国家审计的关系及其互动机制进行了详细剖析,认为国家治理与国家审计的互动主要是透过组织的设计与管理、政治制度的设计、合法化的基础、文化与社会等四个决定制度供给的要素展开的。具体而言,组织的设计与管理、政治制度的设计、合法化的基础、文化与社会等要素的完善有助于国家审计的完善,同时国家审计通过对组织的设计与管理、政治制度的设计、合法化的基础、文化与社会等要素的反向作用改进国家治理。     

The Market for Corporate Control and the Agency Paradigm

The paper analyzes the role of agency driven takeover activity. The analysis shows that takeovers can play an important role in reducing agency costs even though the gains from the corporate restructuring that follows the takeovers are zero, which counters existing models of agency driven takeover activity. The model can therefore form the basis for deriving empirical predictions which discriminate between the agency paradigm and the corporate restructuring paradigm of takeover activity. Negative post-merger performance (Agrawal et al., 1992), which is inconsistent with corporate restructuring is consistent with this model, and that takeover targets' investment levels are below or at the average (Servaes 1994), which is inconsistent with the free cash flow theory is also consistent with this model.     

Rationalizable and Coalition Proof Shareholder Tendering Strategies in Corporate Takeovers

This paper determines the set of rational responses by shareholders to unconditional takeover offers at prices between the pre-acquisition and post-acquisition price of the firm. Two cases are considered. In the first case, coordination across shareholders is not presumed. In this case, the game is analyzed using the Rationalizability criteria (Bernheim, 1984). It is demonstrated that the Rationalizable strategy vectors include all pure strategy vectors. In the second case, the set of strategies consistent with coordination through preplay communication, the Coalition Proof Nash Equilibria (Bernheim, Peleg, and Whinston, 1987) are analyzed. It is shown that, given even a minimal degree of divisibility of shareholdings, the raider's per share profit is bounded from below by a positive constant independent of the number of shareholders. These results imply that preplay coordination between shareholders eliminates the free-rider problem.     

The Market for Corporate Control and the Agency Paradigm

The paper analyzes the role of agency driven takeover activity.The analysis shows that takeovers can play an important rolein reducing agency costs even though the gains from the corporaterestructuring that follows the takeovers are zero, which countersexisting models of agency driven takeover activity. The modelcan therefore form the basis for deriving empirical predictionswhich discriminate between the "agency paradigm" and the "corporaterestructuring paradigm" of takeover activity. Negative post-mergerperformance (Agrawal et al., 1992), which is inconsistent withcorporate restructuring is consistent with this model, and thattakeover target's investment levels are below or at the average(Servaes 1994), which is inconsistent with the free cash flowtheory is also consistent with this model. JEL numbers: G14,G31, G32, G34.     

我国上市商业银行公司治理绩效的实证研究

商业银行公司治理结构是现代银行制度的核心,对于商业银行的发展具有决定意义的作用。我国上市商业银行是按照现代企业制度的要求建立起来的,在公司治理方面相对我国其他类型银行具有一定的借鉴意义,因此对我国上市商业银行进行研究具有一定的理论和应用价值。本文采用实证研究方法,通过对于商业银行年报中披露的有关公司治理数据的统计分析,考察了公司治理结构中股权结构、董事会特征、监事会特征、高级管理层激励特征等各类治理指标对于商业银行公司业绩的影响关系。