We study the impact of accelerated vesting of equity awards on takeovers, whereby the restricted stock and/or stock options of the target CEO immediately vest and become unrestricted upon the close of the acquisition. We find that takeover premiums are significantly larger when the target CEO...

This paper investigates the effects of managerial mergers and acquisitions related investment strategies on the exit risk of firms. Using a sample of hyperactive bidders, I show that managerial excessive acquisitiveness can precipitate firm exit. Overbidding is associated with weak corporate...

This study investigates whether conference calls accompanying M&A announcements in Europe provide valuable information for capital market participants and hence induce an abnormal stock price revaluation on the bidder’s equity. Based on handpicked data for transactions between 2008 and 2012 we...

Watts (2003) and Ball and Shivakumar (2005) argue that accounting conservatism decreases managerial incentives to make negative net present value investments. I develop and test a new hypothesis that accounting conservatism is associated with managers making less risky investments. I find that...

Past research shows that the outcomes of acquisitions of private firms are better than those of public firms. This finding is commonly explained by the price discount due to illiquidity and the higher information risk involved in acquiring private firms. Existing studies do not separate the two...

This study examines whether requiring the disclosure of audited financial statements disciplines managers' mergers and acquisitions (M&A) decisions. When an M&A transaction meets certain disclosure thresholds, the SEC requires the public acquirer to disclose the target's audited financial...

We explore the governance effect of short-selling threat on mergers and acquisitions (M&A). We use equity lending supply (LS) to proxy for the threat, as short sellers' incentives to scrutinize a firm depend on the availability of borrowing shares. Our results show that acquirers with higher LS...