A trade-off in corporate diversification

The marginal benefits of diversification exceed the costs by a decreasing margin, and diversifying beyond the optimal level will produce a wealth loss. This trade-off predicts an inverted U-relation between the degree of diversification and wealth. We find empirical evidence in support of this trade-off proposition. Consistent with the trade-off, firms diversify cautiously and stop diversifying before the marginal benefits are offset by the costs. Our findings lend support to the arguments suggesting efficient diversification. In line with the endogeneity of diversification, the findings also indicate that the optimal level of diversification can vary across firms depending on their reasons for diversifying

The importance of targets and value creation in vertical acquisitions

We study how value creation in vertical acquisitions varies in the importance of the target’s assets to its acquirer. The synergistic gain increases in the degree of vertical relatedness between the acquirer and target industries. This finding suggests that the importance of the target firm’s assets to its acquirer’s productivity is an important value-creating channel in vertical acquisitions. We also find evidence suggesting that acquirers extract greater value as the synergistic gain increases, consistent with an efficient investment incentive underlying the integration decision

Cross-border arbitrage and acquirers’ returns in the Eurozone crisis

Using a sample of 1,263 European acquisitions over 2004–2012, we show that the performance of cross-border acquisitions is significantly affected by the Eurozone and the euro debt crisis. First, due to financial market integration and the elimination of exchange rate risk, intra-Eurozone acquisitions do not earn any abnormal returns for bidders. Second, as a result of the euro debt crisis and the temporary misvaluation among European countries, acquisitions earn positive abnormal returns only for non-Eurozone companies acquiring Eurozone targets. These abnormal returns are driven by the depreciation of the euro and the use of low-cost capital available to overvalued acquirers

The effect of bidder conservatism on M&A decisions: text-based evidence from US 10-K filings

This paper examines whether and how bidders' conservative tone in 10-K filings influences the subsequent mergers and acquisitions (M&A) investment decisions of these US firms from 1996 to 2013. Based on 39,260 firm-year observations, we find, consistent with behavioural consistency theory, that conservative bidders are less likely to engage in M&A deals. Further, those that decide to engage in M&As are likely to acquire public targets and within-industry firms. These bidders are inclined to employ more stock acquisitions than cash acquisitions. Our results also indicate that conservative bidders experience abnormally poor stock returns around the announcements of M&A investments. This provides new insights on the mechanism through which bidders' sentiments influence shareholders' wealth. Overall, these findings highlight the implications of the textual sentiment of corporate disclosure for the forecasting of corporate investment and financing decisions. Our results have practical implications, since they shed light on the value relevance of the information content of major Securities Exchange Commission (SEC)-mandated 10-K filings

The safety and soundness effects of Bank M&;A in the EU:Does prudential regulation have any impact?

This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers on changes in key safety and soundness measures of both acquirers and targets. We find that acquirers in cross‐border deals tend to perform better when their home country prudential supervisors and deposit insurance funding systems are stricter than that of the target. For target banks, we find that stronger supervision and tougher deposit insurance funding regimes result in positive post merger changes in liquidity and performance. Overall, while bank mergers have undermined bank safety and soundness in some cases, our evidence indicates that strong regulation and supervision can partly ameliorate this

What do premiums paid for bank M&As reflect?:The case of the European Union

We analyze the takeover premiums paid for a sample of domestic and cross-border bank takeovers in the European Union between 1997 and 2007. We find that acquiring banks value profitable, high-growth and low risk targets. We also find that the strength of bank regulation and supervision as well as deposit insurance regimes in Europe have measurable effects on takeover pricing. Stricter bank regulatory regimes and stronger deposit insurance schemes lower the takeover premiums paid by acquiring banks. This result, presumably in anticipation of higher compliance costs, is driven by domestic deals. Similar qualitative results are found for both the entire sample and the sample of publicly traded targets

Convertible bonds in corporate finance

This thesis makes three main contributions to the literature on convertible bond financing. First, we provide a new theoretical explanation for convertible bond financing. Unlike the existing theory, our new theory provides a rationale for the issuance of both callable and non-callable convertible bonds. We also undertake empirical tests of the implications of the new theory and find that the new theory is supported by the empirical evidence. Second, we empirically examine the way in which firms choose the design of convertible bonds and investigate the effect of financial constraints on the firms’ convertible design decision. Consistent with our new theory, we find that the design of convertible bonds is influenced by both adverse selection costs and financial distress costs. Moreover, we find that the design of convertible bonds for relatively constrained firms is determined in a different manner from the design of convertible bonds for relatively unconstrained firms. Our findings suggest that taking into account the effect of financial constraints is important in the understanding of convertible design decisions. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to document the effect of financial constraints on choice of convertible design. Third, we empirically examine two alternative explanations for the late call of a convertible bond: the “optimal” call theory of Butler (2002) and the financial distress costs theory of Jaffee and Shleifer (1990). In contrast to the existing evidence reported in Altintig and Butler (2005), we find that the observed late calls cannot be explained by the effect of the notice period as incorporated in the optimal call theory of Butler (2002). The observed conversion premium is much higher than Butler’s optimal conversion premium. On the other hand, we find strong empirical support for the financial distress costs theory. Firms do not make a conversion-forcing call until the conversion premium is large enough to avoid a failed conversion, which could give rise to financial distress. We find that by the time a call is made, the probability of failed conversion is very small and the cross-sectional variation in the conversion premium is mainly explained by potential distress costs

Analysis of the legality of 'reverse engineering' of computer programs under the copyright designs and patents act 1988 An approach for the future

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN064822 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions: Evidence from the Indochina region

We study cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in ten countries in the Indochina region during the period 1993–2015. Countries with a French colonial history showed markedly lower levels of cross-border M&As (value as well as volume) than other countries, whether previously colonized or not. This difference persists even after accounting for the known drivers of cross-border M&A activity, including legal origin, trade openness, and labor cost levels. Together, these findings suggest that the colonial past of a country plays an important role in cross-border M&A activity