Mergers and Acquisitions: CEO Duality, Operating Performance and Stock Returns

Author(s):  
Nga Le Thu Pham ◽  
K. B. Oh ◽  
Richard J. Pech
Author(s):  
Simi Kedia ◽  
Laura Starks ◽  
Xianjue Wang

Abstract Hedge fund activists have ambiguous relationships with the institutional shareholders in their target firms. While some support their activities, others counter their actions. Due to their relatively small holdings in target firms, activists typically need the cooperation of other institutional shareholders that are willing to influence the activists’ campaign success. We find the presence of “activism-friendly” institutions as owners is associated with an increased probability of being a target, higher long-term stock returns, and higher operating performance. Overall, we provide evidence suggesting the composition of a firm’s ownership has significant effects on hedge fund activists’ decisions and outcomes.


2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn McLaughlin ◽  
Assem Safieddine

PurposeThis paper seeks to examine the potential for regulation to reduce information asymmetries between firm insiders and outside investors.Design/methodology/approachExtensive prior research has established that there are substantial effects of information asymmetry in seasoned equity offers (SEOs). The paper tests for a mitigating effect of regulation on such information asymmetries by examining differences in long‐run operating performance, changes in that performance, and announcement‐period stock returns between unregulated industrial firms and regulated utilities that issue seasoned equity. The authors also segment the samples by firm size, since smaller firms are likely to have greater asymmetries.FindingsConsistent with regulated utility firms having lower levels of information asymmetry, they have superior changes in abnormal operating performance than industrial firms pre‐ to post‐issue and their announcement period returns are significantly less negative. These findings are most pronounced for the smallest firms, firms likely to have the greatest information asymmetries and where regulation could have its greatest effect.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper does not examine costs of regulation. Thus, future research could seek to measure the cost/benefit trade‐off of regulation in reducing information asymmetry. Also, future research could examine cross‐sectional differences between different industries and regulated utilities.Practical implicationsRegulation reduces information asymmetry. Thus, regulation or mandated disclosure may be appropriate in industries/markets where information asymmetry is severe.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to compare the operating performance of regulated and unregulated SEO firms.


2007 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 963-1008 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Larcker ◽  
Scott A. Richardson ◽  
I˙rem Tuna

The empirical research examining the association between typical measures of corporate governance and various accounting and economic outcomes has not produced a consistent set of results. We believe that these mixed results are partially attributable to the difficulty in generating reliable and valid measures for the complex construct that is termed “corporate governance.” Using a sample of 2,106 firms and 39 structural measures of corporate governance (e.g., board characteristics, stock ownership, institutional ownership, activist stock ownership, existence of debtholders, mix of executive compensation, and anti-takeover variables), our exploratory principal component analysis suggests that there are 14 dimensions to corporate governance. We find that these indices have a mixed association with abnormal accruals, little relation to accounting restatements, but some ability to explain future operating performance and future excess stock returns.


2000 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 183-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsung-Ming Yeh ◽  
Yasuo Hoshino

This paper investigated the impact of M&As on both the acquiring firms' stock prices and corporate performance by using evidence from 20 Taiwanese corporations. Our data suggest that the accounting performance of Taiwanese acquiring firms failed to meet the stock market's expectation of future improvements in the operations of the acquiring firms. The stock market reacted in favor of the announcements of M&As, however, there is a downward change in the acquiring firms' profitability from premerger to postmerger periods. However we do not find any significant correlation between stock returns and the change in accounting performance, which is different from some previous studies.


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