The role of earnout financing on the valuation effects of global diversification

This article examines the impact of earnout financing on the value of acquiring firms engaged in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs), using a dataset of UK, US, Canadian and Australian firms from 1992 to 2012. The results show that firms initiating international business operations via earnout-financed CBAs enhance their value more than acquirers in (a) domestic acquisitions and (b) remaining CBAs by established multinational corporations (MNCs). Our findings demonstrate the superiority of earnout financing in CBAs announced by acquirers that have no prior international business experience. The results are robust to the firms’ endogenous choice to diversify globally and to the use of earnout financing. We contend that earnouts contribute to the reduction of valuation risk faced by firms acquiring a foreign target firm for the first time. Our empirical findings contribute to the existing debate on the merit of international expansion through CBAs and the role of earnout contingent payment

Information sensitivity of high tech industries: evidence from merger announcements

The uncertain nature of technological innovation and a potential misunderstanding of the complexities of high tech operations can lead to much speculation about the true worth of high tech firms. This valuation uncertainty is expected to heighten the information sensitivity of investors in high tech industries. To examine this prediction, this article investigates factors that influence the impact of high tech merger announcements on intra-industry firm valuations. The results show that investors in industry-related firms are highly sensitive to merger announcements involving high tech targets and that the industry responses are even stronger in takeovers with high information impact factors.

The disappearing day-of-the-week effect in the world's largest equity markets

The well-documented day-of-the-week effect has shown that stock returns on some days of the week are often significantly higher than on other days. To investigate whether improvements in market efficiency may have caused this anomaly to disappear over time, this study examines the day-of-the-week effect in the world's largest developed equity markets over the last 22 years. The results indicate that, during the 1980s, this anomaly was clearly evident in the vast majority of developed markets, but it appears to have faded away in the 1990s. The implications of these findings are that long-run improvements in market efficiency may have diminished the effects of certain anomalies in recent periods.

Dividend Omissions and Intraindustry Information Transfers

We examine potential information transfers from companies that announce dividend omissions to their industry rivals. Specifically, we examine the abnormal stock returns and abnormal earnings forecast revisions of rivals after a company makes a dividend-omission announcement. Our results show negative and significant abnormal stock returns and negative and significant abnormal forecast revisions for rival companies in response to the announcement, and a significant and positive relation between the two. We conclude that a dividend-omission announcement transmits unfavorable information across the announcing company's industry that affects cash flow expectations and ultimately stock prices. 2003 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.

Bidder CEO and Other Executive Compensation in UK M&As

"This paper investigates the impact of M&As on bidder (CEO and other) executive compensation employing a unique sample of 100 completed bids in the UK over the 1998-2001 period. Our findings indicate that less independent and larger boards award CEOs significantly higher bonuses and salary following M&A completion both for the full sample and for the UK and US sub-samples. UK CEOs and executives are rewarded more for the effort exerted in accomplishing intra -industry or large mergers than for diversifying or small mergers and their cash pay is unaffected by other measures of their managerial skill or performance. US bidders are rewarded at higher levels than their UK counterparts and their remuneration is related only to measures of CEO dominance over the board of directors. Overall our findings offer support for the managerial power rather than the agency theory perspective on managerial compensation." Copyright 2006 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.