This paper examines the effect of risk-taking incentives on acquisition investments. We find that CEOs with risk-taking incentives are more likely to invest in acquisitions. Economically, an inter-quartile range increase in vega translates into an approximately 4.22% enhancement in acquisition investments, consistent with the theory that risk-taking incentives induce CEOs to undertake investments. Importantly, the positive relation between vega and acquisitions is confined only to non-overconfident CEO subgroup. Further, corporate governance does not generally affect the association between vega and acquisition investments. Finally, vega is positively related to bidder announcement returns.

We contribute to the debate on whether stock-financed acquisitions destroy value for shareholders. A stock-financed acquisition is a joint takeover/equity-issue event. Using seasoned equity offering announcement returns, we estimate through linear prediction and propensity-score matching the share price drop that stock acquirers experience due to the financing choice. Net of this effect, stock-financed acquisitions are not value destructive, and the method of payment generally has no further explanatory power in the cross-section of acquirer returns. Our evidence is largely inconsistent with the agency costs of overvalued equity hypothesis.

This paper examines, using a global M&A data set, the relationship between the target firm’s minority shareholders’ returns and a country’s stock market development in deals in which large shareholders increase their ownership stakes. For the purpose of this study, we use two measures of stock market development: (1) turnover over GDP, and (2) turnover over market capitalization. We provide evidence supporting the view that minority shareholders in target firms gain significantly more in countries with high stock market development than their counterparts in less-developed markets. Our results are robust to several firm and deal characteristics and provide evidence to policy makers that the degree of stock market development is a key determinant in improving minority shareholders’ welfare.

Using elections that reveal changes in countries' leniency on the left-right political spectrum, we examine whether societal sentiment regarding income inequality affects executive compensation. We find that elections that bring left-leaning (pro-equality) political leaders to power are associated with significantly lower CEO pay and this impact begins in the year of such elections, not before. We further show that a rise in pro-equality sentiment restrains powerful CEOs from extracting rents. However, such sentiment also imposes value-damaging limits on incentives of senior executives in a given firm or industry. Our results are robust to a host of alternative measures and specifications.

This paper establishes that credit ratings affect the choice of payment method in mergers and acquisitions. We find that bidders holding a high rating level are more likely to use cash financing in a takeover. We attribute this finding to lower financial constraints and enhanced capability of highly rated firms to access public debt markets as implied by their higher credit quality. Our results are economically significant and robust to several firm- and deal-specific characteristics and are not sensitive to the method used to measure the likelihood of the payment choice or after controlling for potential endogeneity bias.

We use hand-collected board data around the issuance of two distinct government-led board structure mandates in the U.K. to establish the effect of outside directors on acquirer performance. Increases in outside director representation are associated with better acquirer returns in deals involving listed targets, but not when the target is private. These results are consistent with greater outside director reputational exposure when publicity is high. While we do not advocate mandated board structures, our evidence suggests that the particular diktats we examine were associated with improved acquirer performance in public firm takeovers. We present corroborating evidence from the U.S. around a similar reform period.

Cash holding is on average more valuable when firms are managed by overconfident CEOs. Economically, having an overconfident CEO on board is associated with an increase of $0.28 in the value of $1.00 cash holding. The positive effect of CEO overconfidence on the value of cash concentrates among firms that are more likely to suffer from the underinvestment problem (i.e., financially constrained firms which exhibit high growth opportunities). In addition, CEO overconfidence affects negatively the value of cash in firms that are financially unconstrained, a finding which is consistent with the overinvestment hypothesis. The results are robust to various tests and alternative explanations.

We examine the value effect of working capital management (WCM) for a large sample of US firms between 1982–2011. Our results indicate (i) the existence of an optimal level of working capital policy; and (ii) firms that converge to that optimal level (either by increasing or decreasing their investment in working capital) improve their stock and operating performance. We also document that corporate investment is the channel through which efficient WCM translates into superior firm performance. In particular, efficient WCM allows firms to redeploy underutilized corporate resources to higher-valued use, such as the funding of cash acquisitions.

This study explores the impact of joint corporate asset restructuring decisions, where firms sell an asset in order to fund a subsequent acquisition (selling-to-buy). We find that firms with asset sales are associated with increased acquisition probability. The effect is more pronounced for financially constrained firms. We also show that, in addition to the established improved firm efficiency from focus-increasing asset sales, financially constrained firms obtain the necessary funds to conduct focus-increasing acquisitions, improving further their efficiency. This translates into both higher long-run operating performance and stock abnormal returns at the asset sale announcement.

We provide new evidence on the role of financial advisors in M&As. Contrary to prior studies, top‐tier advisors deliver higher bidder returns than their non‐top‐tier counterparts but in public acquisitions only, where the advisor reputational exposure and required skills set are relatively larger. This translates into a $65.83 million shareholder gain for an average bidder. The improvement comes from top‐tier advisors' ability to identify more synergistic combinations and to get a larger share of synergies to accrue to bidders. Consistent with the premium price–premium quality equilibrium, top‐tier advisors charge premium fees in these transactions.