This paper provides evidence on the corporate governance role of shareholderinitiated proxy proposals. Previous studies debate over whether activists use proxy proposals to discipline firms or to simply advance their self-serving agendas, and whether proxy proposals are effective at all in...

We employ a unique data set containing bank-specific information to explore how foreign bank entry determines credit allocation in emerging markets. We investigate the impact of the mode of foreign entry (greenfield or takeover) on banks’ portfolio allocation to borrowers with different...

This paper is the first to investigate the corporate governance role of shareholderinitiated proxy proposals in European firms. While proposals in the US are nonbinding even if they pass the shareholder vote, they are legally binding in the UK and most of Continental Europe. Nonetheless,...

Managers are risk averse. Excessive risk-aversion can destroy shareholder wealth. A key source of risk is the threat of an opportunistic takeover designed to take advantage of depressed market prices. This is especially the case in innovative or hard-to-value (`HtV') companies whose price may be...

We investigate the long-term profitability of corporate takeovers of which both the acquiring and target companies are from Continental Europe or the UK.We employ four different measures of operating performance that allow us to overcome a number of measurement limitations of the previous...

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the European takeover market.We characterize the main features of the domestic and cross-border corporate takeovers involving European companies in the period 1993-2001.We provide detailed and comparable information on the size and dynamics of...

This paper shows that a vibrant and economically important public-to-private market has reemerged in the US, UK and Continental Europe, since the second half of the 1990s.The paper shows recent trends and investigates the motives for public-to-private and LBO transactions.The reasons for the...

While the means of payment in takeovers has been a focal point in the takeover literature, what has largely been ignored is the analysis of how the takeover bid is financed and what its impact is on the expected value creation of the takeover. This paper investigates the sources of transaction...

In this paper, we analyse the short-term wealth effects of large (intra)European takeover bids.We find large announcement effects of 9% for target firms and a cumulative abnormal return that includes the price run-up over the two-month period prior to the announcement date of 23%.However, the...

This paper (1) proposes new variables to detect informed high-frequency trading (HFT), (2) shows that HFT can help to predict takeover targets, and (3) shows that HFT in uences target announcement announcement returns. Prior literature suggests that informed trade may occur before takeovers, but...