We examine whether disagreement between managers and investors relates to the informativeness of bidder returns around acquisition announcements. We predict that greater disagreement about the merits of an acquisition creates uncertainty about investors' revaluation of acquiring firms, making...

This paper empirically examines whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (quot;SOXquot;) discourages risk-taking by publicly traded U.S. companies. Several provisions of SOX are likely to have this effect, including an expanded role for independent directors, an increase in director and officer...

We find that the announcement gain to target shareholders from acquisitions is significantly lower if private firm instead of a public firm makes the acquisition. Non-operating firms like private equity funds make the majority of private bidder acquisitions. On average, target shareholders...

CEOs have a potential conflict of interest when their company is acquired: they can bargain to be retained by the acquirer and for private benefits rather than for a higher premium to be paid to the shareholders. We investigate the determinants of target CEO retention by the acquirer and whether...

We examine a sample of 12,023 acquisitions by public firms from 1980 to 2001. Shareholders of these firms lost a total of $218 billion when acquisitions were announced. Though shareholders lose throughout our sample period, losses associated with acquisition announcements after 1997 are...

Acquiring-firm shareholders lost 12 cents around acquisition announcements per dollar spent on acquisitions for a total loss of $240 billion from 1998 through 2001, whereas they lost $7 billion in all of the 1980s, or 1.6 cents per dollar spent. The 1998 to 2001 aggregate dollar loss of...

We examine a sample of 12,023 acquisitions by public firms from 1980 to 2001. Shareholders of these firms lost a total of $218 billion when acquisitions were announced. Though shareholders lose throughout our sample period, losses associated with acquisition announcements after 1997 are...

We examine the theoretical predictions that link acquirer returns to diversity of opinion and information asymmetry. Theory suggests that acquirer abnormal returns should be negatively related to information asymmetry and diversity-of-opinion proxies for equity offers but not cash offers. We...

Contrary to past literature, active ownership, defined as all officers and directors of the target firm, has no association with target returns. Rather, we find that inside (managerial) ownership has a positive relation with target returns, whereas active-outside (non-managing director)...

We examine whether disagreement between managers and investors, in the context of mergers and acquisitions, affects the information contained in bidder returns. We test the disagreement hypothesis, which posits that disagreement causes investors to be less certain about their revaluation of...