SEASONED EQUITY ISSUERS’ R&D INVESTMENTS: SIGNALING OR OVEROPTIMISM |
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Authors: | Hong Qian Ke Zhong Zhaodong Zhong |
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Affiliation: | 1. Oakland University;2. Central Washington University;3. Rutgers University |
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Abstract: | It is well known that investors often react negatively to the announcements of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). We posit that issuers can use positive discretionary (higher than expected) R&D investments before the SEO to signal their investment prospects to mitigate the negative announcement effect. Alternatively, positive discretionary R&D may be attributed to managerial overoptimism about future returns of R&D investments. We find strong support for the signaling hypothesis among high‐tech issuers: investors respond more favorably to the SEO announcements of high‐tech issuers with positive discretionary R&D; these issuers are more likely to use new capital in future R&D and they produce better post‐SEO operating performance. In contrast, we find some evidence of managerial overoptimism among low‐tech issuers: investors tend to penalize low‐tech firms with positive discretionary R&D at SEO announcements; they are more likely to hold new capital as cash and they fail to produce better post‐SEO operating performance. |
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Keywords: | G14 G30 G32 |
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