This paper investigates the patterns of directors' trades and returns around takeover announcements. We find that the pre-announcement net value (the difference between buy value and sell value) of directors' trading is positively related to acquirers' announcement period abnormal returns. This...

We find that the threat of takeover has a negative relation with default risk. The result is robust to alternative estimation methods, different measures of default, exclusion of the financial crisis period and over a number of sub-periods. We identify improvement in performance and earnings...

We exploit the staggered initiation of merger and acquisition (M&A) laws across countries as a plausibly exogenous shock to the threat of takeover to examine whether the market for corporate control has a real effect on firm-level stock price crash risk. Using a difference-in-differences...

This paper examines the existence of a diversification discount in the Australian takeover market. A sample of 446 Australian publicly-listed firms involved in the market for corporate control was observed between 2000 and 2007. We examine two pre-announcement and four post-announcement periods,...

In this paper we examine both informed and contraire trading preceding successful takeover announcements on US target firms from 2001 to 2006. We find that both informed trading and contraire trading exist within the period preceding successful takeover announcements on the stock market, as...