By buying convertibles and shorting the underlying stock, hedge funds distribute equity exposure to well-diversified shareholders. We find that a higher fraction of a convertible is privately-placed with hedge funds when institutional ownership, stock liquidity, issue size, concurrent stock...

We examine the impact of Canadian convertible bond issuance on equity market liquidity. Using issuance event dates between April 2002 and March 2011, we analyze the change in short interest and stock liquidity during a 1-year event window. We consider mainstream liquidity measures, including...