Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Investor Heterogeneity, Investor-Management Disagreement And Share Repurchases, Sheng Huang, Anjan V. Thakor

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper develops and tests a new theoretical explanation for stock repurchases. Investors may disagree with the manager about the firm's investment projects. A repurchase causes a change in the investor base as investors who are most likely to disagree with the manager tender their shares. Therefore, a firm is more likely to buy back shares when the level of investor-management agreement is lower, and agreement improves as a consequence. Moreover, dispersion of opinion among investors cannot explain repurchase activity once the stock price and investor-management agreement are controlled for. Overall, the evidence is consistent with firms strategically using repurchases …