Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) altered the voluntary disclosure practices of firms with publicly traded securities, thereby affecting relationships between value and growth stock expectations and actual earnings. The results show that earnings forecasts for both stock groups are biased but that bias is less after the introduction of Reg FD. In fact, the difference in pre/post FD forecast bias is larger for growth stocks, suggesting that before Reg FD, analysts did not just misinterpret news but consciously tried to maintain relationships with growth firm managers. However, Reg FD limited these relationships severing the monetary advantage that might be gained from manipulating forecasts.

This study examines whether investment banker reputation impacts the initial period returns of two stage combinations (carve-outs followed by spin-offs). All prior literature regarding investment banker reputation is based on single-stage events (IPOs). An analysis is conducted of all completed two-stage carve-outs/spin-offs from 1981 to 2002. Findings indicate that underwriters for two-stage combinations retain their reputation in contrast with the single-stage findings of Carter et al. [Carter, R.B., Dark, F.H., Piwowar, M.S., 2002. IPOs and underwriter reputation: Redeeming the value of reputation. Working Paper, Iowa State University] that investment bankers redeemed (cashed-in) their reputation. Also, this study finds that the Carter et al. reputation factors dominate the Loughran and Ritter [Loughran, T., Ritter, J.R., 2002. Why don’t issuers get upset about leaving money on the table in IPOs? The Review of Financial Studies 15 (2), 413–443] reputation factors.