Acquirers and targets define and allocate interim risk through Material-Adverse-Event (MAE) exclusions in merger agreements. I examine why MAE-exclusions exist based on the risk they address and assess whether such risk allocation affects the gains in the acquisition. Targets and acquirers seem...

In this paper, we investigate the stock price behaviour of newly listed companies on the stock exchange market with an extremely high level of information asymmetry. We show a unique mechanism of how informed investors influence the stock prices before entering the market to consume abnormal...

This paper examines how a target firm's trading volume, bid-ask spread, and stock return volatility respond over a two-week period to the announcement of M&A deals ("nonprice reactions"). I find that these variables are strongly correlated with changes in risk arbitrageurs' holdings surrounding...

I study the effect of a threat of hedge fund activism on corporate investment. I find that managers are less likely to undertake acquisitions when subject to a higher threat of activism. They decrease the number of risky, value-creating acquisitions undertaken by the firm. I present evidence...

A large body of literature demonstrates that acquisitions are on average value-destroying for the acquirer. We investigate whether the change in the acquirer's information uncertainty contributes to acquirer wealth losses. Information uncertainty affects the discount rate (the cost of capital),...

We hypothesize that managers can learn about a firm's investment uncertainty from the equity options market. Using a US sample of 1,865 merger and acquisition attempts during 1996–2015, we show that the volatility implied from an acquiring firm's equity options around an acquisition...

This paper examines the liquidity, Tobin's Q, and cost of equity effects from voluntary and mandatory IFRS adoption. In contrast to prior work, we focus on the firm level heterogeneity in the economic consequences, recognising that the level of uncertainty avoidance (UAI) in a country will...

We analyze the importance of policy uncertainty to textual disclosure in the U.S. over the 1996 to 2015 period. Consistent with the information-acceleration view, we find that policy uncertainty increases textual disclosure quantity evident in disclosure length. We also document that policy...

From 1987 to 2008, riskier firms were more likely to be taken over. Yet, on average, the acquirer declined in value by 2.8% when it bought a "risky target" (the third tercile, having an annualized idiosyncratic volatility of 61% or more), but only by 0.6% when it bought a "safe target" (the...

Using terrorist attacks as an exogenous shock to safety uncertainty, we provide causal evidence that firms located near terrorism-stricken areas receive lower takeover premium. The latter finding is reflected in lower target firm abnormal returns and synergy gains. Additionally, given that firms...