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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the operating and stock performance of subsidiaries prior to a parent–subsidiary merger and examine whether minority shareholders benefit from such a merger.

This paper employs a refined performance-adjusted discretionary accrual model as a measure for earnings management prior to parent–subsidiary mergers.

This paper finds evidence supporting the notion that subsidiaries’ operating performance is manipulated downward prior to parent–subsidiary mergers, but the incentive to expropriate minority shareholders depends on a parent’s percentage ownership of its subsidiary prior to the merger.

The findings of this paper have practical implications for investors and especially for policy makers to regulate this type of mergers.

This study contributes to the thin literature on parent–subsidiary mergers by providing empirical evidence that parent companies can expropriate their minority shareholders’ wealth in these mergers. This finding is consistent with the minority expropriation hypothesis, which contradicts the findings in prior studies on this unique type of mergers.

Differentiates market (e.g. USA) from group‐based (e.g. Germany) corporate governance systems, traces their evolution and asks whether they are converging. Puts forward a theoretical convergence model based on the belief that agency problems can best be solved by specific corporate control mechanisms, recognizing that it would demand more changes from group‐based than from market systems. Examines current trends for both relating to institutional/regulatory environments, the market for corporate control and the focus on shareholder value creation/activism. Presents statistics from the USA, UK, Germany and France to show their trends towards the convergence model and discusses them in some detail. Concludes that they have all moved towards the model although in different ways and at different rates.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the profitability of European Union (EU) firms with the aim of confirming the mean‐reverting pattern documented by earlier research in the USA. In addition, the paper classifies firms by industry sectors across countries to investigate potential differences.

The paper follows closely a model where the forecasting of profitability is done through year‐by‐year regressions. This approach allows the use of large samples and the year‐by‐year variation in the slopes. Both a linear and a nonlinear partial adjustment models are used for forecasting profitability.

Findings show that the profitability does follow a mean‐reverting process and that profitability forecasting can be improved substantially by exploiting the mean‐reverting feature. Further analysis shows that mean reversion does not play an important role in EU countries as in the USA and there is no evidence of nonlinearity in mean reversion. It was also found that mean‐reverting speed differ across industries, with utilities, financial and manufacturing among the lowest.

The sample companies are not originated from a single economy, but from 15 different countries with different macro‐economic conditions that might influence their profitability.

Studying the European market, where the institutional and financial structure of firms are different from the USA allows us to observe whether the US results are sample specific or can be generalized and applied elsewhere. The difference observed in these sample results is probably due to the fact that the US economy is more competitive than that of EU.

Outlines previous research on the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs), describes the institutional framework for IPOs in Malaysia and presents a study of long run Malaysian IPO performance using 1992‐1996 data on 258 IPOs, classified into growth or value portfolios. Explains the methodology and presents the results, which show that value IPOs outperform growth IPOs, while both outperform the market. Finds their cumulative market adjusted return (averaged at 41.7 per cent) positively correlated with book‐to‐market equity, earnings‐to‐price, cashflows‐to‐price and the time lag between close of application and actual listing; and negatively related to the IPO price and size. Briefly considers consistency with other research and the market implications.

This paper looks at one relatively less‐visited issue in market timing: switching investments on common stocks between different stock markets, namely, “intermarket timing”. By employing the stock price data for the period of 1992‐2002 from a developed market, Hong Kong, and two emerging markets, Shanghai and Shenzhen, this paper examines potential gains and the required predictive accuracy for intermarket timing between Hong Kong and Shanghai, and between Hong Kong and Shenzhen from Hong Kong investors’ perspective. Potential gains could be obtained from such timing strategy, and the non‐high minimum forecasting ability required for successful timing is fairly attainable for Hong Kong investors, even after taking into account the assumed transaction costs.

In this paper we provide an in‐depth comparative analysis of the shares of listed firms in three Southeast Asian stock markets, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, that had experienced the most violent fluctuations in the 1997 market crash. Our purpose is to present broad lessons from the experiences of these countries that could be helpful to understand the behavior of stock markets under severe financial crisis. Several new results are found: (1) There were local price bubbles prior to the market crash in each country. (2) Price momentum may have contributed to the share price increase prior to the crash but not during the period of crisis or the market reversal. (3) The price bubbles in these countries were mainly among the most liquid and most volatile shares. (4) Asset liquidity was found to cause returns to behave differently in quiet versus extraordinary period.

Compares four risk‐adjusted performance measures and explains their importance, to banking in particular. Applies the risk‐adjusted return on capital (RAROC) measure to five product classes at several branches of an international bank for six months, finds considerable differences between required and actual RAROCs and investigates the reasons why. Discusses both exogeneous factors (e.g. trading terms). Believes that banks can improve their internal capital markets by using risk‐adjusted performance measurement.