The stock exchange industry has experienced strong competition in recent years. The commercial realities of the day have compelled some exchanges to change their ownership and governance structure from mutual to public ownership and have listed their shares on their own exchanges. This paper examines the value effects of self-listing and the attendant change in business strategy on the performance of listed exchanges. The results provide considerable support for the proposition that exchanges whose traditional sources of revenue have come under severe pressure, and those that have experienced a slow growth in net profit margin but high growth in market activities, are likely to change their ownership structure from mutual to public ownership. A comparison of the operating performance of the listed exchanges to that of a control group of non-listed exchanges shows that the self-listed exchanges have performed better than their non-listed counterparts. The self-listed exchanges also outperformed the stock market indexes and a control group of non-exchange firms that went public in the same year as the listed exchanges. I submit that better monitoring of managerial performance, the potential threat of takeover from the market for corporate control that accompanies self-listing and the reduction in agency costs associated with the mutual form of exchange contribute to unlock growth opportunities and value for the publicly traded stock exchanges.

A special issue of the Journal of Banking and Finance (2005) devoted to the performance of privatized banks in middle- and low-income countries shows mixed results. In this paper, we present evidence that shows that privatized banks in developed countries have experienced significant improvements in operating performance. The improvement in performance remains significant after controlling for persistence in bank performance. A comparison of the performance of privatized banks in developed and developing countries suggests that privatization has encouraged excessive risk taking among privatized banks in developing countries, with the consequence that those banks carry large non-performing assets than their counterparts in the developed countries. We also observe that consistent with the competitive effects hypothesis, investors view privatization announcements as foreshadowing bad news for rival banks.

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the pre- and post-privatization operating performance and stock market performance of privatized banks and their rivals in middle- and low-income countries. First, we find that privatization announcements elicit negative abnormal returns for rival banks. The effects are more pronounced for subsequent tranche sales where the proportion of government ownership in the privatized bank is reduced. Second, we observe that the privatized banks underperformed the benchmark index in the long run. Investors who bought shares of the privatized banks on the first day of trading and held them for 5years (instead of investing in the market index) lost 24% of their wealth. The underperformance is consistent with the negative long run returns that have been documented for initial public offerings. Third, we document marginal improvements in the post-privatization operating performance of the privatized banks. Though the privatized banks in middle- and low-income countries are better capitalized than rival banks, they carry higher problem loans and are overstaffed relative to other private banks in the post-privatization period. Since most of the sample firms are partially privatized, we submit that perhaps the continued government ownership of the privatized banks might have hindered managers’ ability to restructure the firms.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the effects of the privatization of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) on the Bank’s performance and that of the rival banks. First, we find that the major rival banks reacted negatively to the privatization announcements although the initial (partial privatization) and the final (full) privatization announcements elicited stronger stock market reaction from the rival banks. Second, we find that the CBA’s long-term stock market performance improved markedly as the proportion of government ownership decreased, with the Bank’s cumulative abnormal returns being 50% more than those of its rivals three years after the Bank had been fully privatized. Also, the CBA has not only been very efficient in reducing cost and improving its profitability in the post-privatization period, it has outperformed its rivals on almost all the operating performance measures and has become the most profitable bank in Australia. A particularly noteworthy finding is that the improvements in the CBA’s operating and stock market performance and the rival banks’ reaction to the partial and full privatization announcements were strongest after the Bank had been fully privatized. The implication of the results for governments contemplating privatization of state-owned enterprises is that full privatization is necessary in order to achieve strong gains in efficiency, profitability and stock market performance.

This paper examines the effects of the recent spate of financial exchange mutual-to-stock conversion phenomenon on the performance of listed exchanges and the quality of the stock market using the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) as a case study. We find that the ASX stock significantly outperformed the stock index and the control group on a market-adjusted return basis. The stock market performance is driven by strong operating performance. The profitability ratios of the ASX have significantly improved in the five years following the demutualization and self-listing. The performance improvements remain significant even after controlling for growth in the Australian economy. From a market quality perspective, we document evidence of increased trading activity by foreign investors after ASX’s demutualization and self-listing. Interestingly, we also find that bid-ask spreads of the stock market have narrowed in the post-conversion period. In particular, small-cap firms have become more liquid. The results show that stock exchange conversion from mutual to publicly traded exchange is not only value enhancing for the exchange and its shareholders, but it is also beneficial for the stock market as a whole.

We examine the risk taking behavior of privatized banks prior to and after privatization and find that privatized banks experience a significant decrease in risk after privatization; however they continue to exhibit higher risk than their rivals. This finding is consistent with the assertion that following privatization and the removal of government guarantees and subsidies, privatized banks become more prudent. Since rival banks do not experience a significant change in risk taking, we attribute the reduction in risk experienced by the privatized banks to changes in the banks' ownership structure rather than to industry factors. Interestingly, we also find that a higher fraction of the privatized banks' shares sold beyond a certain intermediate level induces higher risk taking, as the privatized bank becomes more accountable to shareholders. The finding that the fraction of shares sold is positively related to risk taking, coupled with the result that the privatized banks had higher risk in the pre-privatization period than in the post-privatization period suggests a nonlinear relationship between government/private ownership of banks and risk taking. Results of further analysis are consistent with a somewhat U-shaped relationship between private ownership and risk taking. The risk taking behavior of newly privatized banks is also influenced by the country's level of development and degree of political risk. Our results are robust to different measures of risk.

In this paper, we examine the motivations of acquirers undertaking partial acquisitions in emerging markets by testing two competing hypotheses: the market for corporate control hypothesis and the market entry hypothesis. We find that targets of cross-border acquisitions outperform targets of domestic acquisitions in the pre-acquisition period. While cross-border acquisitions have no significant impact on target firms' operating performance, targets of domestic acquisitions experience significant improvements in operating performance and substantial changes in ownership structure after the acquisition. The evidence suggests that domestic partial acquisitions in emerging markets serve as a market for corporate control, while cross-border partial acquisitions are motivated by the strategic market entry rationale.