We study the movement of assets from private to public ownership through two alternative means: the acquisition of private companies by firms that are public (sellouts) or by initial public share offerings (IPOs). We consider firm-specific characteristics for 1,074 IPOs and 735 sellouts from...

This article has two related tasks. First, we review the articles published in this Special Issue on Corporate Control, Mergers, and Acquisitions. These articles provide new evidence on several aspects of corporate control and governance including the value and performance effects of various...

We show that acquirer returns are significantly higher in stock-swap acquisitions of difficult-to-value targets, as measured by Ramp;D intensity and idiosyncratic return volatility. This finding contributes to an explanation of the determinants of, and value gains from, using stock as a method...

We show that acquirer returns are significantly higher in stock-swap acquisitions of difficult-to-value targets, as measured by R&D intensity and idiosyncratic return volatility. This finding contributes to an explanation of the determinants of, and value gains from, using stock as a method of...

Protective governance structure is often viewed as costly to minority shareholders who bear the costs of opportunism by entrenched managers. A less common view is that protective governance structures encourage value-enhancing initiative, allowing risk-averse managers to pursue projects they...

We study takeover sequences that contain at least five acquisitions made by an individual acquirer over a period greater than 12 months with no two acquisitions separated by more than 24 months. Acquisitions made in the context of such sequences represent more than 25% of takeover activity by...

We study shareholder returns for firms that acquired five or more public, private, and/or subsidiary targets within a short time period. Since the same bidder chooses different types of targets and methods of payment, any variation in returns must be due to the characteristics of the target and...

Although the SEC's main charge is to ensure the disclosure of material information, the SEC has not always consistently defined materiality. We show that acquisitions of privately-held targets classified as quot;insignificantquot; by the SEC appreciably affect market prices, and therefore are...

The most important development in international corporate governance in the past 20 years has been the privatization of state-owned enterprises. There is evidence that privatization has resulted in improved firm performance but the source of this improvement is difficult to isolate. We argue...