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Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate Finance

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Full-Text Articles in Business

Socially Responsible Firms, Allen Ferrell, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog Dec 2016

Socially Responsible Firms, Allen Ferrell, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the corporate finance tradition, starting with Berle and Means (1932), corporations should generally be run to maximize shareholder value. The agency view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) considers CSR an agency problem and a waste of corporate resources. Given our identification strategy by means of an instrumental variable approach, we find that well-governed firms that suffer less from agency concerns (less cash abundance, positive pay-for-performance, small control wedge, strong minority protection) engage more in CSR. We also find that a positive relation exists between CSR and value and that CSR attenuates the negative relation between managerial entrenchment and value.


Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah Officer Jul 2013

Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah Officer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Theory and recent evidence suggest that overvalued firms can create value for shareholders if they exploit their overvaluation by using their stock as currency to purchase less overvalued firms. We challenge this idea and show that, in practice, overvalued acquirers significantly overpay for their targets. These acquisitions do not, in turn, lead to synergy gains. Moreover, these acquisitions seem to be concentrated among acquirers with the largest governance problems. CEO compensation, not shareholder value creation, appears to be the main motive behind acquisitions by overvalued acquirers.


Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah Officer Aug 2011

Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah Officer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Overvaluation may motivate a firm to use its stock to acquire a target whose stock is not as overpriced (Shleifer and Vishny (2003)). Though hypothetically desirable, these acquisitions in practice create little, if any, value for acquirer shareholders. Two factors often impede value creation: payment of a large premium to the target and lack of economic synergies in the acquisition. We find that overvaluationdriven stock acquirers suffer worse operating performance and lower long-run stock returns than control firms that are in the same industry, similarly overvalued at the same time, have similar size and Tobin’s q, but have not pursued …