Using intraday data, we find that bank announcements of changes in the prime rate have significant effects on Dow Jones stock price indexes and yields in the Treasury bill futures market. We find comparable effects using daily data for indexes of share prices of banks and financial firms as well as interest rates on various maturities of government securities. Our evidence is consistent with the view that banks have a comparative advantage in processing private information gained through bank-borrower relations and the regulatory supervision process.

We examine valuation effects on firms in the same industry as entities that are the subject of carve-outs (initial public offerings of subsidiary equity), spin-offs, and asset sell-offs. Share price reactions for rivals are negative in response to equity carve-outs. In comparison, rival stock returns are positive for spin-offs and normal for asset sell-offs, restructuring actions that do not entail a public offering of equity. Our results suggest managers conduct equity carve-outs when outside investors are likely to price the new shares higher than managers' perceived value.

We examine share-price reactions of commercial bank common stock issues and find negative effects on rival commercial and investment banking firms. In comparison, we find no such intra-industry effects for equity issues by industrial firms. Our results support theoretical models in which bank loan portfolios impound asymmetric information about client firms, so that adverse individual bank announcements generate external information effects on other banks. A policy implication of these results is that regulatory pressures applied to individual banks induce spillover costs for the commercial and investment banking industries. Our evidence also indicates that the legal separation of commercial and investment banking activities is artificial.

We show how the change to differential voting rights allows dominant shareholders to retain control even after selling substantial economic ownership in the firm and diversifying their wealth. This unbundling of cash flow and control rights leads to more dispersed economic ownership and a closer alignment of dominant and dispersed shareholder interests. When insiders sell sizeable amounts of their economic interests, firms increase capital expenditures, strengthen corporate focus, divest non-core operations, and generate superior industry-adjusted performance. The change to differential voting rights both fosters corporate control activity and creates higher takeover premiums that are paid equally to all shareholders.

[We develop a two-sided asymmetric information model of asset sales that incorporates the key differences from mergers and allows the information held by each party to be impounded in the transaction. The buyer's information is conveyed through a first-stage competitive auction. A seller with unfavorable information about the asset accepts the cash offer of the highest bidder. A seller with favorable information proposes a take-it-or-leave-it counteroffer that entails buyer equity. Thus, the cash-equity decision reflects the seller's but not the buyer's information in contrast to the theoretical and empirical findings for mergers. The central prediction of our model is that there are large gains in wealth for both buyers and sellers in equity-based asset sales, whereas cash sales generate significantly smaller gains that typically accrue only to sellers. Our empirical results are consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model.]

We analyze intercorporate asset sales where equity is the means of payment, and compare the results to cash asset sales. Equity deals are value‐enhancing for both buyers, 10%, and sellers, 3%, while cash sales generate seller returns of 1.9% and buyer returns that are not significant. Combined wealth gains are large for equity deals, but modest for cash deals. Equity‐based asset sales are not a precursor to consolidations between buyers and sellers, and do not affect buyer openness to the takeover market. We conclude that the use of buyer equity conveys favorable information about the value of assets and buyers.