Contested Tender Offers: An Estimate of the Hazard Function.

In this paper, the authors estimate the hazard function for firms that are targets in unsolicited tender offers. The data support a Weibull-gamma specification and imply a hazard rate that increases sharply in the initial period following the bid announcement, after which it declines steadily. In explaining the hazard, the authors find that the initial bid premium has no explanatory power, while the onset of an auction and the proportion of institutional ownership in the target firm significantly enhance the hazard. Legal and financial restructuring actions by target management are effective in reducing the hazard, thereby prolonging the contest.