Intra-Industry Reactions to Stock Split Announcements

We examine whether favorable information conveyed by stock split announcements transfers to nonsplitting firms within the same industry. On average, nonsplitting firms' shareholders experience positive and significant abnormal returns at the stock split announcements of their industry counterparts. In addition, industrywide and firm-specific characteristics are important determinants in explaining nonsplitting firms' stock returns. These firms' earnings increase significantly, and the earnings changes are positively related to the stock price reactions. Finally, we find no evidence that investors revise the value of nonsplitting firms because they anticipate a decline in earnings volatility.     

Value creation and pricing in buyouts: Empirical evidence from Europe and North America

Using a unique proprietary data set of 1980 realized and unrealized buyouts completed between 1986 and 2010, we examine entry and exit pricing in buyouts and its influence on private equity (PE) sponsors' returns. We find that besides leverage and operational improvements, EBITDA multiple expansion (i.e. the difference between entry and exit pricing) is a fundamental factor in explaining equity returns and the result of skill rather than pure luck. We also provide evidence that more experienced PE sponsors use more debt to finance a PE transaction and debt is positively related to entry buyout pricing. However, for a transaction with a given leverage level, more experienced PE sponsors are able to negotiate lower prices. In addition, our results show that deals conducted by first time funds which are realized in a later stage of a fund's life cycle are associated with lower exit prices which can be explained by the increased exit pressure for the PE sponsor.     

Merger Announcements and Insider Trading Activity: An Empirical Investigation

This paper provides evidence of excess returns earned by investors in acquired firms prior to the first public announcement of planned mergers. The study is distinguished from earlier merger studies in its use of daily holding period returns for the 194 firms sampled. The results confirm statistically what most traders already know. Impending merger announcements are poorly held secrets, and trading on this nonpublic information abounds. Specifically, leakage of inside information is a pervasive problem occurring at a significant level up to 12 trading days prior to the first public announcement of a proposed merger.     

Dressed to merge — small fits fine: M&A success in the fashion and accessories industry

In this paper we examine the value implications of 192 M&A transactions in the fashion and leather accessories industry during the period from 1994 to 2009. Contrary to general cross-country evidence we find highly significant, positive abnormal returns to acquiring shareholders. Cross-sectional analysis further reveals that the key value drivers are diversifying fashion M&A transactions for smaller, profitable companies that reduce idiosyncratic risk whereas deals executed by large companies that act as frequent acquirers do not, on average, significantly enhance shareholder wealth.     

Trading frequency and asset pricing on the London Stock Exchange: Evidence from a new price impact ratio

This study proposes a new price impact ratio as an alternative to the widely used Amihud’s (2002) Return-to-Volume ratio. We demonstrate that the new price impact ratio, which is deemed Return-to-Turnover ratio, has a number of appealing features. Using daily data from all stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange over the period 1991–2008, we provide overwhelming evidence that this ratio, while being unequivocal to construct and interpret, is also free of a size bias. More importantly, it encapsulates the stocks’ cross-sectional variability in trading frequency, a relatively neglected but possibly important determinant of stock returns given the recently observed trends in financial markets. Overall, our findings argue against the conventional wisdom that there is a simple direct link between trading costs and stock returns by strongly suggesting that it is the compound effect of trading frequency and transaction costs that matters for asset pricing, not each aspect in isolation.     

The effects of costly exploration on optimal investment timing

This paper investigates a principal–agent model in which an owner (principal) optimizes a contract with a manager (agent) who has been delegated to undertake an investment project. In the model, we explore the effects of costly exploration by which the manager learns the real value of development cost. We show that high exploration cost can lead to a pooling policy not contingent on project type. Further, and more notably, we show that, in the presence of asymmetric information, higher exploration cost leads to wealth transfer from owner to manager and can ultimately improve social welfare.     

Local market makers, liquidity and market quality

We examine the role of geographically proximate (local) market makers in providing liquidity and improving the quality of a dealer market. Firms with active participation of local dealers enjoy lower quoted and effective spreads, as well as more informative prices. The beneficial effects from local market makers are not confined to a few “top” local dealers and they cannot be attributed to their participation in the firm's IPO syndicate or industry specialization. Further, we find that days with aggressive bidding from local market makers relative to their non-local counterparts are associated with significant positive abnormal returns, consistent with local market makers possessing information advantages. In summary, our results suggest that the information advantages of local market makers may be a contributing factor to the reduction in the cost of trading.     

News Releases, Market Integration, and Market Leadership

Using intraday data we examine the response of futures on the British Long Gilt (Gilt), the German Government Bond (Bund), the U.S. Treasury Bond (Bond), the Japanese Government Bond (JGB), and the Italian Government Bond (IGB) to the release of U.S. macroeconomic news. Bond, Gilt, and Bund futures respond strongly to the news releases. The response of JGB futures is less pronounced, and IGB futures display weak responses at best. The instruments take time to adjust to news in the announcements. Following the announcements, Bond futures exert a high degree of market leadership. Evidence of increasing market integration is also noted.     

Firm Transparency and the Costs of Going Public

We demonstrate that firms that are more transparent pay less, in all components of issuance costs, to go public. We employ a sample of 334 previous leveraged buyouts and a characteristic-matched control sample to test the hypothesis that greater firm transparency before the issue decreases the flotation costs of the initial public offering. These flotation costs are divided into initial underpricing, underwriter discount, administrative expenses, and the overallotment option required to take the firm public. Our results provide further evidence of the asymmetric information hypothesis as it applies to initial public offerings.     

Consolidating Corporate Control: Divisional Versus Whole-Company Leveraged Buyouts

We examine the empirical relation between firm characteristics and the likelihood of choosing a restructuring choice between two types of leveraged buyouts: a whole‐company leveraged buyout (WLBO) and a divisional leveraged buyout (DLBO). Our findings suggest that firm characteristics such as volatility of cash flow and growth potential play an important role in determining a firm's restructuring choice between a WLBO and a DLBO. In particular, firms with greater volatility of cash flow and/or greater future growth potential are more likely to adopt a DLBO than a WLBO as their restructuring choice. These results are consistent with the notion that although low‐growth, high‐cash‐flow firms would create the most value for stockholders by paying out cash and tying future cash flows to the firm's debt service through a WLBO, high‐growth, low‐cash‐flow firms would be better off by selling assets if those assets would be better managed under a DLBO.     

Skewness and Kurtosis Implied by Option Prices: A Correction

Corrado and Su (1996) provide skewness and kurtosis adjustment terms for the Black‐Scholes model, using a Gram‐Charlier expansion of the normal density function. In this note we provide a correction to the expression for the skewness coefficient and illustrate the effect on call option prices of the error found.     

Informed Trading Around Earnings Announcements: Another Look

This study is an empirical test of the Easley, O'Hara, and Srinivas (1998) multimarket sequential trade model of stock and option markets. We employ two approaches to determine the information content of signed stock and option trades executed around quarterly earnings announcements. The first approach expands the vector autoregression (VAR) technique of Hasbrouck (1991a) to include signed option trade volumes and inter‐trade durations. Estimates from the VAR models provide insight into whether both equity and option trades are viewed as informative by the equity specialist. The second approach focuses on the information content of the earnings releases to determine whether signed equity and option trades executed prior to the announcements are informed. Results indicate that although informed traders prefer to transact in both markets around earnings announcements, option market transactions contain no incremental information.     

The Firm Size Effect and the Economic Cycle

Small firms have, on average, lower return on assets and higher leverage than do large firms. Small firms tend to do well in good economic conditions but to perform poorly in the worst economic conditions. We investigate the hypothesis that the small firm effect is manifest in the expansion phase of the economic cycle but not in the contraction phase. The empirical results of our study confirm the hypothesis for 1976–95. We use the alpha, residual, and regression methods in testing the hypothesis.     

Differences in Performance of Independent and Finance-Affiliated Venture Capital Firms

We examine the differences in the investment behavior of independent and finance-affiliated venture capital firms (VCFs). We find that differences in internal management mechanisms and staff backgrounds lead to external performance differences. Using VC-backed companies listed in Singapore as our sample, we find significant differences between these two types of VCFs in industry preference, investment duration, VCF syndication, number of board seats, initial underpricing, and long-term market returns. Independent VCFs add more value to their portfolios. Thus, we conclude that the participation of independent VCFs is an important corporate-level factor for the success of the venture capital market.     

Gains to Mutual Fund Sponsors Offering Multiple Share Class Funds

Although the number of mutual funds grew during the 1990s, much of the growth is attributable to the introduction of multiple share class (MS) funds. Proponents argue that the MS structure leads to cost savings, which can be passed onto investors as lower expenses. However, if the structure lowers costs, sponsors are likely to profit from it. Though investors are concerned about the base expense ratio, the sum of administrative and management fees, fund sponsors generate profits from the management fees. As such, they would prefer to increase the management fee if they can simultaneously lower administrative fees. Our results indicate that MS fund investors pay lower administrative fees, but management fees are approximately 7 basis points higher than single-class funds. Overall, base expense ratios are higher than for single-class funds, suggesting fund sponsors capture the cost benefits the MS structure provides. Our results are robust to different model specifications and different estimation techniques.     

Forms of Foreign Investment Liberalization and Risk in Emerging Stock Markets

I examine the effect of different forms of foreign investment liberalization on risk in emerging equity markets, including international cross-listings and closed-end country funds, and in the domestic equity market as foreign investment restrictions are eliminated. I find that in Latin American markets volatility declines significantly with different forms of foreign investment liberalization, and in Asian markets volatility does not increase significantly. Volatility is driven by domestic factors in South America, but the transmission of volatility from the United States to Mexico increases after liberalization. The market risk exposure increases in Argentina after liberalization, in Chile with an index of American Depositary Receipts, and in Thailand with greater foreign ownership, reducing the diversification benefits of these markets.     

Are the Best Small Companies the Best Investments?

Previous research finds that large companies previously judged to be excellent growth companies have subsequently been poor investments. We examine small companies selected by Business Week on the basis of multiple criteria used in annual articles featuring highly rated growth companies. We study the investment performance over the three years before eleven annual Business Week publications and the three years after publication. We find positive excess returns in the pre‐publication period, but negative excess returns in the post‐publication period. This reversal in investment performance appears to be due to a mean‐reversion tendency in operating performance, in which the earnings and the past rates of return on capital of such companies subsequently decrease significantly.     

Government Bond Market Seasonality, Diversification, and Cointegration: International Evidence

Using government bond market data for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan, I investigate several hypotheses. Market efficiency is investigated by testing for seasonality and cointegration. The seasonality results are mixed. In regression tests, a January effect is detected in several markets (United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Canada) using local currencies. However, in a nonparametric test, the January effect is supported only for France. When U.S. dollar returns are used, regression results also reveal a January effect for several markets (United States, Germany, France, and United Kingdom). These results are not confirmed by a nonparametric test. Correlation analysis shows considerable diversification opportunities for short‐term investors. Cointegration tests indicate that several of the markets share cointegrating vectors, increasing the possibilities of using other endogenous bond markets to better predict movements in a particular market.