Stock Splits, A Survey

In this survey paper I summarize the literature's findings on the short-run and long-run effects of stock split announcements as well as what happens in the preceding and subsequent years around a stock split event. I also summarize how firm characteristics influence these results. Furthermore, I discuss the various theories regarding why splits occur and why stock return distributions change subsequent to split events. I specifically focus on the changes in the first and second moments of stock returns and analyze related theories such as optimal trading, optimal tick size, liquidity, and signaling. More importantly I present the pros and cons of each of these theories and discuss which of them are more plausible. I suggest that a combination of the several theories suggested in the literature can rationally explain the return distribution changes around stock splits. I conclude with suggestions for future research

Essays in Pricing of Credit Risk in Bond and Equity Markets.

This work consists of two essays that investigate the pricing of credit risk in the equity and bond markets. The first essay, “Is there a Distress Risk Anomaly? Bond Spread as a Proxy for Default Risk,” investigates the pricing of default risk in the cross section of equity returns. The contribution of this paper to the literature is three-fold. First, the paper shows that the distress risk anomaly is an amalgamation of other anomalies and return relationships previously documented in the literature. Second, this is the first paper to use corporate bond spreads to measure the ex-ante probability of default risk. Third, contrary to previous findings, we show that default risk is not priced negatively in the cross section of equity returns. The second essay, “Corporate Reputation and Cost of Debt”, investigates the role a firm’s reputation plays in determining its cost of debt. We measure a company’s reputation using the annual ranking of “Most Admired Companies” published by Fortune magazine, which surveys industry experts on perceptions of firm quality along eight attributes. After controlling for credit risk and other known determinants of credit spreads, we find a robust inverse relationship between a firm’s reputation as measured by the Fortune survey and the credit spread on its bonds. We also find this effect to be greater for firms that are subject to greater information asymmetry. By explicitly accounting for an intangible element of credit risk, we substantially improve upon the existing literature which, relying on more tangible factors, concludes that a large component of credit spread variation remains unexplained. We also show that the Fortune reputation measure is a good ex ante predictor of corporate failure, improving upon standard measures used in the literature.Ph.D.Business AdministrationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89806/1/yildizha_1.pd

Is there a Distress Risk Anomaly? Pricing of Systematic Default Risk in the Cross Section of Equity Returns

The standard measures of distress risk ignore the fact that firm defaults are correlated and that some defaults are more likely to occur in bad times. We use risk premium computed from corporate credit spreads to measure a firm’s exposure to systematic variation in default risk. Unlike previously used measures that proxy for a firm’s physical probability of default, credit spreads proxy for a risk-adjusted default probability and thereby explicitly account for the non-diversifiable component of distress risk. In contrast to prior findings in the literature, we find that stocks that have higher credit risk premia, that is stocks with higher systematic default risk exposures, have higher expected equity returns which are largely explained by the market factor. We confirm the robustness of these results by using an alternative systematic default risk factor for firms that do not have bonds outstanding. Consistent with the theoretical result in George and Hwang (2010), we also show that firms react to increases in their systematic default risk exposures by reducing their leverage, leading to lower physical probabilities of distress. Our results show no evidence of firms with high systematic default risk exposure delivering anomalously low returns

Is there a Distress Risk Anomaly? Pricing of Systematic Default Risk in the Cross Section of Equity Returns

The standard measures of distress risk ignore the fact that firm defaults are correlated and that some defaults are more likely to occur in bad times. We use risk premium computed from corporate credit spreads to measure a firm’s exposure to systematic variation in default risk. Unlike previously used measures that proxy for a firm’s physical probability of default, credit spreads proxy for a risk-adjusted default probability and thereby explicitly account for the non-diversifiable component of distress risk. In contrast to prior findings in the literature, we find that stocks that have higher credit risk premia, that is stocks with higher systematic default risk exposures, have higher expected equity returns which are largely explained by the market factor. We confirm the robustness of these results by using an alternative systematic default risk factor for firms that do not have bonds outstanding. Consistent with the theoretical result in George and Hwang (2010), we also show that firms react to increases in their systematic default risk exposures by reducing their leverage, leading to lower physical probabilities of distress. Our results show no evidence of firms with high systematic default risk exposure delivering anomalously low returns

Is there a Distress Risk Anomaly? Pricing of Systematic Default Risk in the Cross Section of Equity Returns

The standard measures of distress risk ignore the fact that firm defaults are correlated and that some defaults are more likely to occur in bad times. We use risk premium computed from corporate credit spreads to measure a firm’s exposure to systematic variation in default risk. Unlike previously used measures that proxy for a firm’s physical probability of default, credit spreads proxy for a risk-adjusted default probability and thereby explicitly account for the non-diversifiable component of distress risk. In contrast to prior findings in the literature, we find that stocks that have higher credit risk premia, that is stocks with higher systematic default risk exposures, have higher expected equity returns which are largely explained by the market factor. We confirm the robustness of these results by using an alternative systematic default risk factor for firms that do not have bonds outstanding. Consistent with the theoretical result in George and Hwang (2010), we also show that firms react to increases in their systematic default risk exposures by reducing their leverage, leading to lower physical probabilities of distress. Our results show no evidence of firms with high systematic default risk exposure delivering anomalously low returns

Customer-base concentration, profitability and distress across the corporate life cycle

Using a recently expanded data set on supplier-customer links, we examine how customer concentration affects firm profitability. We find that the relation between customer concentration and firm profitability is more complex than recent literature suggests. We confirm that customer concentration promotes operating efficiencies for profitable firms. However, we find a different result for younger, less profitable firms where customer concentration impairs firm profitability and significantly increases distress risk. Thus, the relation between customer-base concentration and profitability is non-linear; it is significantly negative in the early years of a firm’s public life, turning positive as the relationship matures. The reason for this dynamic relation is that firms who serve a few major customers make customer-specific investments that result in larger fixed costs and greater operating leverage. These relatively high fixed costs mean that customer concentration is risky for young firms, but can significantly benefit the firm if the relationship survives

Firm Complexity and Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift

We show that the post earnings announcement drift (PEAD) is stronger for conglomerates than single-segment firms. Conglomerates, on average, are larger than single segment firms, so it is unlikely that limits-to-arbitrage drive the difference in PEAD. Rather, we hypothesize that market participants find it more costly and difficult to understand firm-specific earnings information regarding conglomerates as they have more complicated business models than single-segment firms. This, in turn slows information processing about them. In support of our hypothesis, we find that, compared to single-segment firms with similar size, conglomerates have relatively low institutional ownership and short interest, are covered by fewer analysts, these analysts have less industry expertise and also make larger forecast errors. Finally, we find that an increase in firm complexity leads to larger PEAD and document that more complicated conglomerates have greater PEADs. Our results are robust to a long list of alternative explanations of PEAD as well as alternative measures of firm complexity

Customer-base concentration, profitability and distress across the corporate life cycle

Using a recently expanded data set on supplier-customer links, we examine how customer concentration affects firm profitability. We find that the relation between customer concentration and firm profitability is more complex than recent literature suggests. We confirm that customer concentration promotes operating efficiencies for profitable firms. However, we find a different result for younger, less profitable firms where customer concentration impairs firm profitability and significantly increases distress risk. Thus, the relation between customer-base concentration and profitability is non-linear; it is significantly negative in the early years of a firm’s public life, turning positive as the relationship matures. The reason for this dynamic relation is that firms who serve a few major customers make customer-specific investments that result in larger fixed costs and greater operating leverage. These relatively high fixed costs mean that customer concentration is risky for young firms, but can significantly benefit the firm if the relationship survives