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This paper aims to show that tax‐motivated early exercise of US employee stock options can be, in principle, rationalized for bullish executives. The paper aims to show empirical evidence consistent with private positive information guiding the timing of the exercises.

The paper uses conventional event study methodology to examine the long‐run relative stock price performance of firms in which executives early exercise and maintain the acquired shares. The long‐run analysis adopts the cumulative abnormal return as well as the buy‐and‐hold methodological approach.

Tax‐motivated early exercise may be justified on the grounds that future stock appreciation can be converted to long‐term capital gains if the shares are held for over one year while, should the stock decline, shares can be sold within a year to count for short‐term losses. The empirical results reveal that executives who early exercise and continue to hold a majority of the shares acquired do so before performance in their company stock is significantly better than a benchmark.

Information‐based early exercise is not a harbinger of poor firm performance, as prior research has suggested. This paper illustrates that private positive information can motivate tax‐based early exercise of employee stock options. Prior research has mostly suggested it cannot. Stock retention upon early exercise indicates the optimism of the exerciser.

The first modeling of an exploitable tax asymmetry upon exercise of US employee stock options. The explicit separation of exercises likely based on positive inside information from those likely based on negative information or other non‐informative reasons.

The purpose of this paper is to study the pattern of long-run performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) initial public offerings (IPOs) and examine the firm- and issue-related determinants of long-run performance of SME IPOs in India.

The 3 6, 9 and 12 months share returns of Indian SME IPOs is studied using event time methodologies, i.e. buy and hold returns, cumulative abnormal returns and wealth relatives on a sample of 375 SME IPOs issued during February 2012 to May 2018. Additionally, ordinary least square regression has been used to investigate the determinants of long-run performance of SME IPOs on a reduced sample of 104 because of non-availability of price observations.

The findings reveal that Indian SME IPOs exhibit long-run overperformance contradicting the international evidences of underperformance, and this overperformance is significantly evident using buy and hold abnormal return (BHAR). Furthermore, based on the divergence of opinion hypothesis, fads theory and windows of opportunity hypothesis, the results reveal that on one hand, issue size and oversubscription negatively affect BHAR, while on the other hand, auditor reputation, underwriter reputation, hot market, underpricing, inverse of issue price, profits prior to listing positively affect long-run performance. However, firm age, firm size, debt equity ratio, volatility and long-run performance computed through BHAR lacks significant relationship.

The study relied on event time methodology of measuring aftermarket performance of one year because of the limited availability of price offerings. Hence, the study could be extended to analyze aftermarket returns over a period of three to five years to enable reaching the vivid conclusions. Calendar time methodology may also be used to compute abnormal returns.

The results based on the study provides an implication to the investors by providing them an opportunity to bank higher long-run returns by engaging in active and timely trading strategies. Nevertheless, the results also show that investors should be cautioned while taking investment decisions.

The study contributes to rising body of international literature by analyzing the larger and recent sample of IPOs issued from 2012 to 2018 listed on SME exchange.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long‐term post‐acquisition share performance of Malaysian acquiring firms over the period 2000‐2004.

The authors use the event‐type methodology to analyse acquirer returns in relation to target status, method of payment and other firm characteristics, using both univariate and multivariate analyses. In total three performance measures are used to identify the long‐term share performance of acquiring firms: cumulative market‐adjusted abnormal returns, the buy‐and‐hold market‐adjusted and buy‐and‐hold matched‐sample abnormal returns.

The results show the existence of negative abnormal returns to acquirers over two‐ and three‐year periods after acquisition. The study also finds that acquirers of private targets earn negative returns, while acquirers of public targets earn insignificant returns. It is also found that under‐performance is limited to the small size acquirers and to large relative‐size acquisitions. Furthermore, the results indicate that acquirer's long‐term performance is not related to the method of payment and book‐to‐market ratio of the acquirer.

The Malaysian stock market is relatively small compared to the US and UK markets where most previous research has been carried out. The current study allows us to assess the robustness of the models and whether the findings in developed markets may be generalized to the smaller developing markets. This paper contributes to the present body of knowledge by offering evidence of acquirer's post‐acquisition performance from a developing market.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of capital structure changes by target firms on the outcome and ex post performance of firms targeted by proxy contests.

The influence is examined by using predictions of control‐driven model developed by Harris and Raviv and signaling theory of debt in capital structure.

The results are consistent with the predictions of both control‐driven model and signaling theory. Significant differences are found between two groups of target firms – management victory targets and dissident victory targets. Specifically: management victory targets feature proxy contests that are accompanied by leverage increasing changes in target firms' capital structure; the same group also realizes better long‐run stock performance compared to dissident victory targets; and the long‐run abnormal stock performance of management victory targets is significantly positively related to the increases in leverage in the capital structure during proxy contest period.

This paper is the first to directly address the relationship between leverage change and the outcome and long‐run performance of proxy contest targets, thus confirming both the defensive and the signaling role of debt on firm's capital structure decision.

We investigate institutional investors’ trading behavior of acquiring firm stocks surrounding merger activities for the period 1992–2001. We label investment companies and independent investment advisors as active institutions and banks, nonbank trusts, and insurance companies as passive institutions. We analyze the trading behavior of active and passive institutions surrounding merger announcements and their eventual resolution. Our results indicate that active institutions significantly increase their holdings of acquiring firm stocks for mergers with higher announcement period abnormal return and this increase is more pronounced for stock mergers than cash mergers. Active institutions display preference for stock proposals at the merger announcement on the basis of their prior beliefs and this is explained by the “overreaction phenomenon.” However, they update their beliefs between announcement and final resolution as more information arrives into the market. Finally, active institutions appear to correct their overreaction behavior by displaying their greater preference for cash proposals as compared to stock proposals at the quarter of eventual outcome. The trading behavior of passive institutions suggests that these institutions disregard the market response of merger announcement in trading acquiring firm stocks at the announcement quarter. The passive institutions gradually update their beliefs and utilize the information released at the announcement in rebalancing their portfolios at the final resolution.

Directors help determine the strategic direction of a corporation and are responsible for ensuring the institution has a good system of internal control. Banking institutions without a strategic direction emphasizing sound lending practices that promote the long-run financial health and viability of the institution will be sued more frequently than peer institutions. Institutions that do not have a good system of internal control will also be sued more frequently. Hence, legal expense is a bank corporate governance measure. We compare the performance of bank legal expense and a widely cited corporate governance index in a regression framework to determine which better predicts bank performance. The regressions indicate legal expense is a much better predictor, hence a better measure of bank corporate governance. Regulators should require legal expense reporting and rank institutions by the ratio of legal expense to assets to help identify institutions with weak governance. Seven case studies illustrate the role of legal expense in corporate governance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the response of investors to the announcements on the inclusion and exclusion of companies from the FTSE-ASE 20 index.

Data on the inclusion and exclusion of companies from the FTSE-ASE 20 index in the period 2000-2012 were used. The authors performed an event study analysis using a constant return model and a market model. Two different measures of aggregated abnormal returns, namely the cumulating abnormal returns and the buy-and-hold abnormal return, were used in this investigation.

The results suggest that the exclusion of a company from the index has a significant negative effect on stock returns. Specifically, such a stock takes more than 15 days to recover. However, for a company’s inclusion in the index, the authors observe short-lived positive reactions on stock returns.

Capital market regulators and investors should find the policy implications of this paper meaningful. Investment strategies can be implemented on the basis of the news of exclusion from the index, which can lead to higher performance for investors. As far as authorities are concerned, the decision of inclusion and exclusion to the most significant stock index in the Greek market should be carefully considered because it creates financial instability for a significant time period.

By using a battery of parametric and non-parametric econometric tests, the existence of abnormal returns of the FTSE-ASE 20 index is explored over a long time period, including the recent financial crisis.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing finance literature on capital structure by examining the long‐run equity performance of the firms that employ extremely conservative debt policy – zero leverage for three or five consecutive years.

This paper measures the long‐run equity performance of zero‐debt firms with two commonly used methods: the buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns following Barber and Lyon, and the Fama and French three‐factor models. The four‐factor models are also used to check the robustness of the result.

The authors find that zero‐debt firms perform better over the long run based on the calendar‐time portfolio regressions after adjusting for Fama‐French factors. The results indicate that the persistent lack of debt in the capital structure seems an important determinant of stock returns, and the impact of extreme conservatism in debt policy is not fully captured by the theoretical and empirical risk proxies, such as beta, size, book‐to‐market, and momentum.

The benefit of the present article for investors and portfolio managers is the identification of an additional important determinant of stock returns.

This paper is the first article that thoroughly investigates the long‐run stock returns of the firms that choose to stay debt free over an extended period of time.

This paper examines the relationship between the extent and quality of the four dimensions of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) namely community, environment, workplace and marketplace with the long-run share price performance of Malaysian initial public offering (IPO) companies.

This study utilised secondary data by the content analysis of the annual reports and Datastream of 115 IPOs listed from 2007 to 2015 in Malaysia. The IPO’s performance was determined by calculating the return measures under the equally weighted and value-weighted schemes of the mean abnormal returns and buy-and-hold abnormal returns covering the three years post-listing using the event-time approach.

The findings demonstrate that Malaysian IPOs experience substantial overperformance and underperformance when both the IPO performance measures are benchmarked against the matched companies and market. The results indicated that the extent and quality of the community and environment CSRD dimensions are positively and significantly correlated to the IPO’s performance. On the other hand, the extent and quality of the workplace and marketplace CSRD dimensions are negatively and significantly correlated to the IPO performance.

Malaysian regulators could benefit from these findings in their endeavour to carry out a reform process on CSRD to improve its quality. The results of this study are important to investors, regulators, non-government organisations, communities and policymakers. They also enhance the understanding of companies about the importance of disclosing greater CSR information to improve their performance and profitability.

To the researchers' best knowledge, this study provides new insights into the association between CSRD and the performance of Malaysian IPO companies, which is considered important.

This paper aims to examine the behavioral timing hypothesis in the context of UK rights issues by seeking to establish and investigate inter-relationships between directors’ trading around rights issues as a proxy for stock mis-valuation and post-issue stock price performance.

The cumulative average abnormal returns, the buy and hold abnormal returns, the standardized residual cross-sectional t-test and the generalized sign test techniques.

The directors do possess short-term timing ability as they can identify profitable trading situations by buying more often before stock outperformance and by selling more often before stock underperformance. In addition, directors trading prior to the rights offering is found to exert an influence on the long-run abnormal returns of the rights-issuing firm, which supports the story that mis-valuation and behavioral timing are empirical.

Other types of seasoned equity offerings rather than rights issues should be included.

The research provides a direct testing for the strong form of market efficiency hypothesis, which enables policymakers to take into account market reaction to directors’ trades and how it is affected by corporate events (e.g. rights issues) when addressing insider trading regulations.

This study extends available literature in the context of both developed and emerging equity markets to testing the behavioral timing hypothesis by testing the inter-relationships between directors’ trading around rights issues and post-issue short- and long-run performance. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that examines these inter-relationships in the UK context.