Firms under the threat of hedge fund activism on average experience significant losses of outstanding bondholder wealth: bond yield and default probability rises while bond prices and ratings deteriorate. Under-threat firms receive inferior terms when initiating new loans. These observations are...

This paper investigates the role of institutional trading in the emergence of hedge fund activism – an important corporate governance mechanism. We demonstrate that institutional sales raise a firm's probability of becoming an activist target. Further, by exploiting the funding circumstances...

We look at the reaction to hedge fund activism of managers and shareholders in Japanese firms and explore the implications of our findings for agency theory. We use a qualitative research design which treats the standard agency-theoretical model of the firm as only one possible approach to...

We test the empirical validity of a claim that has been playing a central role in debates on corporate governance—the claim that interventions by activist hedge funds have a negative effect on the long-term shareholder value and corporate performance. We subject this claim to a comprehensive...

Notwithstanding the focus on hedge fund activism, fundamental questions remain. How much does hedge fund activism really matter? What has academic study contributed to the understanding of hedge fund activism? And what, if anything, does research on hedge fund activism illuminate about the...

We investigate hedge fund activism in the corporate bond market. The empirical setting we use is the active enforcement of bondholders' rights during 2003-07 triggered by issuers' violation of a standard bond covenant requiring timely financial reporting. Specifically, we examine differences in...

Hedge fund activism has been identified in the USA as a driver of enduring corporate governance change and market perception. We investigate this claim in an empirical study to see whether activism produced similar results in Japan in four representative areas: management effectiveness,...

This paper utilizes a rich literature on institutional investors' governance roles and develops simple measures of institutional discontent expressed through holding, trading and voice channels to predict hedge fund activism target selection. Discontent expressed through all three channels leads...

This study shows that trade creditors extend a negative response to hedge fund activism. Relative to control firms, target firms' accounts payable decreases by 28%, post activist intervention by hedge funds. This reduction is due to supply-side factors, highlighting suppliers' expropriation...