Voluntary Disclosure around Actual Share Repurchases

We examine voluntary disclosure activities around actual share repurchases. We find that managers increase the percentage and magnitude of bad news announcements during the one-month period prior to repurchasing shares. We find weaker evidence that managers increase the percentage and magnitude of good news announcements during the one-month period following their repurchases. These results are consistent with Barclay and Smith's (1988) conjecture that share repurchases, unlike dividends, provide managers with additional incentives to manipulate information flows. We show that managers alter the content of voluntary disclosures by providing downward-biased earnings forecasts before repurchases. Further empirical analyses indicate that managers' propensity to alter information flows prior to share repurchases increases with their ownership interest in the firm. Overall, our findings suggest that as managers continue to substitute repurchases for dividends, increasing amounts of corporate payouts will be subject to opportunistic disclosure strategies