Earlier evidence concerning the relation between stock returns and the effects of size and earnings to price ratio (E/P) is not clear-cut. This paper re-examines these two effects with (a) a substantially longer sample period, 1951–1986, (b) data that are reasonably free of survivor biases, (c) both portfolio and seemingly unrelated regression tests, and (d) an emphasis on the important differences between January and other months. Over the entire period, the earnings yield effect is significant in both January and the other eleven months. Conversely, the size effect is significantly negative only in January. We also find evidence of consistently high returns for firms of all sizes with negative earnings.

The existing literature on the post-merger performance of acquiring firms is divided. The authors reexamine this issue, using a nearly exhaustive sample of mergers between NYSE acquirers and NYSE/AMEX targets. The authors find that stockholders of acquiring firms suffer a statistically significant loss of about 10 percent over the five-year post- merger period, a result robust to various specifications. Their evidence suggests that neither the firm size effect nor beta estimation problems are the cause of the negative post-merger returns. They examine whether this result is caused by a slow adjustment of the market to the merger event. Their results do not seem consistent with this hypothesis.

Prior research documents that acquirers of public targets earn zero or negative announcement period returns, while acquirers of private and subsidiary targets earn positive returns. This finding is clearly important to managers and stockholders of acquirers and targets. We employ a large sample of public and subsidiary targets to test four previously unexamined theories of the return differential: synergy, target financial liquidity, target valuation uncertainty, and target bid resistance. We find that none of the empirical measures related to these four theories explains the return differential. This is surprising, since the theories have generally found empirical support in other financial areas.

Academic literature, practitioners, courts, and regulators routinely assert that both private and subsidiary targets sell at discounts relative to public targets. However, the empirical evidence to support this conclusion is thin. Our work alters the methodology from prior research to avoid biases due to both one-sided sample truncation and Jensen’s inequality. Following these changes, we find no evidence that unlisted targets sell at discounts. Our results hold under a number of different approaches and after controlling for known determinants of acquisition pricing.

ABSTRACT The existing literature on the post‐merger performance of acquiring firms is divided. We re‐examine this issue, using a nearly exhaustive sample of mergers between NYSE acquirers and NYSE/AMEX targets. We find that stockholders of acquiring firms suffer a statistically significant loss of about 10% over the five‐year post‐merger period, a result robust to various specifications. Our evidence suggests that neither the firm size effect nor beta estimation problems are the cause of the negative post‐merger returns. We examine whether this result is caused by a slow adjustment of the market to the merger event. Our results do not seem consistent with this hypothesis.