The imminent failure of large Wall Street prime brokerage firms during the 2008 financial crisis caused a sudden and dramatic decrease in the amount of financial leverage afforded hedge funds. This decrease in financing resulted from the ex post asymmetrical payoff to rehypothecation lenders –...

We study three cases in which specialized arbitrageurs lost significant amounts of capital and, as a result, became liquidity demanders rather than providers. The effects on security markets were large and persistent: Prices dropped relative to fundamentals and the rebound took months. While...

We study three cases in which specialized arbitrageurs lost significant amounts of capital and, as a result, became liquidity demanders rather than providers. The effects on security markets were large and persistent: Prices dropped relative to fundamentals and the rebound took months. While...

This paper uses a sample of 4,750 stock swap mergers, cash mergers, and cash tender offers during 1963 - 1998 to characterize the risk and return in risk arbitrage. For out-of-sample comparison, we also examine the risk/return profile for a sample of active risk arbitrage hedge funds during 1990...

This paper examines the impediments to arbitrage in 82 situations between 1985 and 2000, where the market value of a company is less than the sum of its publicly traded parts. These situations suggest clear arbitrage opportunities and provide an ideal setting in which to study the risks and...

This paper examines the trading behavior of professional investors around 2,130 mergers announced between 1994 and 2000. We find considerable support for the existence of price pressure around mergers caused by uniformed shifts in excess demand, but that these effects are fairly short-lived,...

We study three cases in which specialized arbitrageurs lost significant amounts of capital and, as a result, became liquidity demanders rather than providers. The effects on security markets were large and persistent: Prices dropped relative to fundamentals and the rebound took months. While...

This paper presents clinically-based studies of two acquisitions that received very different stock market reactions at announcement one positive and one negative. Despite the differing market reactions, we find that ultimately neither acquisition created value overall. In exploring the reasons...

A primary concern in mergers and acquisitions is the risk the deal may be cancelled before it is completed. We document that this ``interim risk" varies asymmetrically with the aggregate market return. Deals paid in cash tend to be renegotiated when the market rises but cancelled when the market...