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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 144 No. 2 2022

The Wall Street stampede: Exit as governance with interacting blockholders

Dragana Cvijanović1,2; Amil Dasgupta3; Konstantinos E. Zachariadis4

1 Cornell University · 2 SC Johnson (United States) · 3 London School of Economics and Political Science · 4 Queen Mary University of London

open access

Abstract

The growth of the asset management industry has made it commonplace for firms to have multiple institutional blockholders. In such firms, the strength of governance via exit depends on how blockholders react to each other’s exit. We present a model to show that open-ended institutional investors such as mutual funds react strongly to an informed blockholder’s exit, leading to correlated exits that enhance corporate governance. Our analysis points to a new role for mutual funds in corporate governance. We examine the trades of mutual funds around exits by activist hedge funds to present empirical evidence consistent with our model.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2022.02.005
Volume
144
Issue
2
Pages
433-455
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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