Open market repurchase programs provide firms with the flexibility to manage the cash and risk aspects of their operations. This paper therefore aims to determine whether cash and risk matter only at the implementation stage in the sequence of a repurchase program: announcement, implementation,...

Payout flexibility from share repurchases enables firms to reduce dilution and funding cost of stock option grants. Using daily repurchase disclosures, we show that U.K. firms use this flexibility to implement (a) large repurchase payouts, (b) with increased frequency, and (c) with lower daily...

While firms cite flexibility as important when repurchasing shares, we know little about how or why firms vary repurchases. We use an extensive sample of daily repurchase transactions from the UK to investigate how the number of repurchase days and volumes of shares repurchased change based on...

We find that corporate governance characteristics of acquiring firms (board ownership, board size, and block-holder control) have an economically and statistically significant impact on operating performance changes following mergers. We also show that dispersion of intra-board ownership stakes...

This paper uses FAS 123R regulation to examine how reduction in CEO compensation incentives affects managerial 'playing-it-safe' behavior. Using proxies reflecting deliberate managerial efforts to change firm risk, difference-in-difference tests show that affected firms drastically reduce both...

We investigate the relation between corporate governance characteristics of hostile takeover targets and the choice to employ 'harmful' resistance that is not perceived as being motivated by shareholders' interests. We find that harmful resistance is associated with firms where managers have...