This paper contributes to our understanding of managers' motivations for initiating the sale of their company. Using a sample of 1,098 publicly-listed US target firms with completed deals, we show that deals initiated by the target firm rather than by outside bidders have higher CEO ownership....

We contribute to the M&A literature by characterizing the information available to insiders of selling firms during the pre-public takeover negotiations by analyzing insider trading during this period. We show that target insiders increase their net purchases only once bidders start signing...

This paper explores the question of the optimality of negotiations with one invited bidder from the seller's point of view. We develop a simple model where synergies created in deals depend on the complementarity of assets between targets and bidders and differ across different bidders. The...

Using policy-related uncertainty as a shock to firms’ internal and external financing frictions, we find significantly lower repurchase likelihood, short-term market reactions, and post-announcement completion rate of open market share repurchases during periods of high policy uncertainty. The...

We provide an investor-attention-based interpretation for early announcements, complementing the signalling-based explanation of Aktas et al. (2018). We find that acquiring firms attract substantial investor attention with their early announcements. The positive relationship between early...