Business Commons^™

Esg Rating And Ownership Structure In U.S. Firms, Keondo Park

CURCE Annual Undergraduate Conference

Given the rising interest in the relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance rating (ESG) and its components, this paper investigates the relationship between insider/institutional ownership structure, ESG ratings and financial performance of the firm, using 398 companies in U.S. 2017 obtained from Bloomberg. This paper entails cross-sectional analysis of ESG rating and its components in 10 sectors (Communication, Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Energy, Financial, Health Care, Industrials, Materials, Technology, and Utilities) and Return on Asset as a matrix for financial performance. The results suggest that ESG rating and performance of the firm is positively and significantly associated, except environmental score. …

The Role Of Liquidity In Technology Sector M&As, Cameron Gaechter

CURCE Annual Undergraduate Conference

The purpose of this study is to examine abnormal wealth effects observed by acquirer and target shareholders in technology-sector M&A deals, as well as the effect that liquidity positioning has on merger premiums or discounts. Abnormal wealth effects experienced by the acquirer and target both pre- and post-merger announcement were tested in a two-sided event study consisting of a large sample of companies representing the two sides of the transaction. The event study demonstrates that different characteristics of M&A deals, i.e. payment consideration and domesticity, have asymmetric effects on abnormal wealth effects for shareholders of both parties, with the most …

Innovation: The Determinant Of Success In Software., Oksana Pawlush

CURCE Annual Undergraduate Conference

This study examines the determinants of performance in the U.S. software sector. The emergence of the software industry has been a world changing phenomenon and created a highly competitive market and a profitable investment field. Using panel regression analysis on a sample of 730 U.S. based software firms spanning the period from 1995 to 2017, this study finds that intangible assets and staff expenses have a statistically significant positive impact on the performance of software companies, as measured by their return on assets and return on equity, respectively.

Corporate Deleveraging And Financial Flexibility, Dan Dreher

CURCE Annual Undergraduate Conference

Most firms tend to deleverage from the historical peak market-leverage (ML) ratios to near-zero ML while also insisting on growing and maintaining high cash balances. Among 424 publicly traded non United States companies that are based in developed countries that are not financial nor industrial firms with five or more years post peak ML data, the median ML at the peak is

0.369 and 0.021 at the subsequent trough. The median cash / total assets ratio rises from 0.046 to

0.080, respectively during the same period. These findings support theories in which firms deleverage from peak ML to restore ample …