Managerial Entrenchment and Shareholder Wealth Revisited : Theory and Evidence from a Recessionary Financial Market

Does managerial entrenchment create or destroy shareholder value? This Article presents both theory and evidence that the answer to this question is not monolithic, but rather depends on factors that vary greatly with the macroeconomic climate, such as firm profitability, takeover frequency, and valuation of takeover premiums. The mainstream view, both of academics and market participants, is that entrenchment reduces accountability to shareholders and amplifies agency costs, thus decreasing shareholder wealth. Two influential studies (Bebchuk, Cohen & Ferrell (2009) and Gompers, Ishii & Metrick (2003)) present empirical evidence consistent with this conclusion, finding statistically significant negative correlations between entrenchment and stock returns during the historic bull market of the 1990s. However, there is no a priori reason to conclude that these effects will persist. Rather, a close examination of first principles suggests that the benefits attributable to the market for corporate control are substantially minimized during recessions. Testing this hypothesis using data from the recent economic crisis, this Article finds that the previously identified, statistically significant correlations between high entrenchment and negative stock returns disappeared entirely during the recent financial crisis, even for the most and least entrenched companies. In fact, the opposite effect was observed: firms with above-average levels of entrenchment outperformed less entrenched firms during the sample period. A portfolio buying firms with above-average entrenchment while simultaneously shorting firms with below-average entrenchment would have generated statistically significant annualized abnormal returns of 5.2%. Moreover, companies that entrenched themselves the most in the year prior to the current crisis outperformed companies that either reduced, maintained, or slightly increased their level of entrenchment. While correlation is not causation, these findings are consistent with the theory that there are significant costs, not just benefits, to exposing managers to an unfettered market for corporate control