The objective is to measure how the values of firms are affected when experiencing shareholder activism. According to several researchers, firms can benefit from increased monitoring. If activism prompts managers to focus more closely on shareholder goals, it could enhance firm value over time....

The prospectus of every initial public offering (IPO) provides a lengthy list of factors that exposes investors to risk when investing in an IPO. However, this list is not useful for distinguishing among IPOs for investors who plan to hold IPO shares in the aftermarket. We attempt to identify...

We find that the announced withdrawal of mergers involving private targets produces negative and significant valuation effects on the bidder's stock on average. This result is distinctly different from the valuation effects for merger withdrawals involving public targets. These unique results...

For shareholders of a mutual fund, the expense percentage represents the only factor whose daily effect on the change in the value of their portfolio is known in advance. Expense percentages may be used in an assessment of the variation in efficiency levels across various mutual fund size...

This study develops arguments explaining why agency costs are more pronounced for firms with higher degrees of multinational business. Empirical tests are conducted to determine whether firms with more exposure to foreign markets have greater agency costs than less exposed firms. Specifically,...

Recent research has shown that ownership restructuring decisions by firms can enhance value. In particular, Allen and McConnell (1998) find that carve-outs elicit a favourable share price response for parent firms at the time the carve-outs are reported. One explanation is that a carve-out...

While studies have documented that Initial Public Offering (IPO) aftermarket performance is weak, little is known about how the aftermarket performance is affected by takeovers of the newly public firms. We find that the aftermarket performance of IPOs is more favourable for those newly public...

We assess trading and non-trading characteristics of takeovers that trigger Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations of illegal insider trading. We find that targets with more pronounced abnormal stock price run-ups (especially in long pre-bid windows) and abnormal trading volume...

Based on a comprehensive sample of European mergers over the 1997--2011 period, we find that information leakages experienced by target firms are conditioned on the investor protection characteristics in the target’s country. Specifically, information leakages are smaller for targets in...

The accounting fraud of Enron and other firms prompted acquirers to be more diligent before investing in companies. The fraud also led to the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which contains provisions that require more due diligence for firms that pursue mergers. We document significant...