We examine 20 years of direct private equity investments by seven large institutions. These direct investments perform better than public market indices, especially buyout investments and those made in the 1990s. Outperformance by the direct investments, however, relative to the corresponding...

Many acquisitions are conducted by clubs, i.e., coalitions of acquirers that submit a single bid. We present a novel analysis of club bidding where the club creates value by aggregating, at least partially, bidders' values. We show that club formation can lead to higher acquisition prices when...

This paper demonstrates that intangible assets play an important role in financial policy. Using a proprietary database of consumer brand evaluation, I show that positive consumer attitude toward a firm's products alleviates financial frictions and provides additional net debt capacity, as...

We investigate what stock return synchronicity reflects in terms of price informativeness by examining its effect on the pricing of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Based on 5,087 SEOs from 1984 to 2007, we find a significantly negative relation between stock return synchronicity (estimated as...

We test if issuers of asset- and mortgage-backed securities receive rating favors from agencies with which they maintain strong business relationships. Controlling for issuer fixed effects and a large set of credit risk determinants, we show that agencies publish better ratings for those issuers...

In April 2012, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) was enacted to help revitalize the initial public offering (IPO) market, especially for small firms. During the year ending March 2014, IPO volume and the proportion of small firm issuers was the largest since 2000. Controlling...

This paper develops a theoretical framework to shed light on variation in credit rating standards over time and across asset classes. Ratings issued by credit rating agencies serve a dual role: they provide information to investors and are used to regulate institutional investors. We show that...

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) have long held that reputational concerns discipline their behavior. The value of reputation, however, depends on economic fundamentals that vary over the business cycle. In a model of ratings incorporating endogenous reputation and a market environment that varies,...

This paper examines how the information quality of ratings from an issuer-paid rating agency (Standard and Poor's) responds to the entry of an investor-paid rating agency, the Egan-Jones Rating Company (EJR). By comparing S&P's ratings quality before and after EJR initiates coverage of each...

Rating agencies are often criticized for being biased in favor of borrowers, for being too slow to downgrade following credit quality deterioration, and for being oligopolists. Based on a model that takes into account the feedback effects of credit ratings, I show that: (i) rating agencies...