0000000000007345
AUTHOR
Begoña Herrero
Do board characteristics affect environmental performance? A study of EU firms
This paper explores the relationship between board characteristics and environmental performance. We adopt a triple perspective of environmental performance, focussing on emissions (waste and CO2), resource consumption (water and energy), and the implementation of environmental initiatives. The sample comprises 644 nonfinancial European Union–based companies. The data cover the period 2002 to 2017. The results confirm that gender diversity and the existence of a corporate social responsibility committee are positively associated with the firms' environmental performance. This finding is consistent with the view that the educational background, talent, and experience of women help promote su…
Shareholder Wealth Creation in Response to Announcements of Acquisitions of Unlisted Firms: Evidence from Spain
We investigate shareholder value creation of Spanish listed firms in response to announcements of acquisitions of unlisted companies and compare this experience to the purchase of listed firms over the period 1991–2006. Similar to foreign markets, acquirers of listed targets earn insignificant average abnormal returns, whereas acquirers of unlisted targets gain significant positive average abnormal returns. When we relate these results to company and transaction characteristics our findings diverge from those reported in the literature for other foreign markets, as our evidence suggests that the listing status effect is mainly associated with the fact that unlisted firms tend to be smaller …
Options and Accounting Information: Empirical Evidence in Stock and Derivative Markets
This study investigates the informational role of options trading in the price discovery process around the dissemination of accounting information, specifically annual and quarterly earnings announcements. Firstly, we examine the effect of options markets by analyzing stock market reaction to earnings news conditional on the availability of options markets. Secondly, we examine options-trading activity around the release of earnings news. Results show that when options trading is available, the options market enhances the price efficiency of equity markets. Moreover, the dissemination of earnings news is associated with significant unusual activity in the options market due to informed tra…
El papel de la liquidez en el efecto de la nueva información. El caso de Latibex
En 1999 se creó en España el mercado Latibex destinado a la contratación en euros de valores de las principales empresas latinoamericanas. Desde su creación este mercado se ha caracterizado por tener una menor actividad negociadora y menor liquidez que la existente en los mercados latinoamericanos de origen. El objetivo del trabajo es analizar si el efecto de la información trasmitida por el anuncio de ganancias trimestrales es diferente en ambos mercados, considerando los diferentes niveles de liquidez y actividad negociadora que presentan ambos mercados.Los resultados obtenidos confirman que el anuncio de ganancias es una información relevante para el valor de la empresa. Sin embargo, es …
Information processing in the stock market around anticipated accounting information: earnings release
Earnings announcements are anticipated events with significant price impacts. This fact can motivate informed traders to trade on private information and liquidity providers to reduce liquidity in order to be careful about insider trading. In this paper, we examine the effect of earnings announcements on information asymmetry. Specifically, we investigate whether liquidity suppliers value the possibility of trading with informed agents and whether market behaviour reflects this. To achieve this objective, we take into account the sign of the surprise, the quarter of the announcement, the quantity of previous information and the quality of the information released. One of the main results of…
Investor Sentiment or Managerial Overconfidence: The Back Room of Acquisitions
In this study, we investigate bidder performance (both in the short and the long term) in periods of high and low valuation market in response to announcements of acquisitions carried out by Spanish listed firms over the period 1991-2011. We provide evidence that bidder reaction to acquisitions, in both the short and the long term, is not consistent with the predictions of investor sentiment (optimism) after controlling for target type. However, our findings after controlling for bidder market-to-book ratio reveal under reaction in acquisitions of listed targets that is not independent of the market sentiment, since it is greater in hot periods. Finally, the results are not so consistent fo…
Do acquirers’ stock prices fully react to the acquisition announcement of listed versus unlisted target firms? Out-of-sample evidence from Spain
Previous results are ambiguous about whether prices fully reflect value creation or destruction at the time of the acquisition announcement when samples are split into listed and unlisted target firms. We find that the Spanish market fully reacts to the acquisition announcement (showing value creation only for unlisted target firm acquisitions), except for the smallest bidders of public targets since we find significant positive abnormal returns for a 24-month post-acquisition window. This evidence is consistent with investors extrapolating the performance of large acquirers of public firm to smaller ones and, therefore, only identifying value creation in the long term.
Value Creation When Acquiring Public vs Private Firms. Spanish Evidence
We investigate shareholder value creation of Spanish listed firms in response to announcements of acquisitions of unlisted companies and compare this experience to the purchase of listed firms over the period 1991–2011. Similar to foreign markets, acquirers of listed targets earn insignificant average abnormal returns. However, acquirers of listed targets that perform a first bid show significant negative abnormal returns. Acquirers of unlisted targets gain significant positive average abnormal returns. When we relate these results to company and transaction characteristics our evidence suggests that the listing status effect is mainly associated with the fact that unlisted firms tend to be…
Information and Investor Behavior Surrounding Earnings Announcements
Preliminary version The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact of annual earnings announcements on the market through the order flow data in addition to the usual transaction data. In this respect, examining order flow data can potentially reveal valuable information which is not available from transaction data. In fact, the data allow us to test hypotheses about asymmetric information and investor behavior and to test if the behavior varies with investor sophistication. In addition, the paper tries to identify the determinants of the impact on a firm's value using assumptions about investor behavior.
La mujer en los consejos de administración: evidencia para el mercado bursátil español
Antecedentes: durante decadas se ha luchado por la incorporacion de la mujer al mercado laboral, lo que promueve la igualdad de genero. Sin embargo, una mayor presencia de la mujer en el mercado laboral no indica una plena igualdad, pues es evidente la existencia del conocido techo de cristal y de una brecha salarial. El articulo proporciona evidencia de estas dos caracteristicas en los consejos de administracion de las empresas del mercado continuo espanol. Metodologia: se estima un modelo de regresion multiple con observaciones por consejero, empresa y ano, controlando efectos fijos temporales de la empresa y del sector. En el estudio consideramos especificamente la presencia de diversida…
Boards of directors: composition and effects on the performance of the firm
This paper analyses the structure of boards of directors and its impact on business performance, which is approximated by economic profitability and the Tobin’s Q ratio. We focus on three basic aspects of boards that have been reviewed in the recent reform of the Good Governance Code: the size of boards, their independence and their diversity. For the study of diversity, we use an index that integrates not only the gender of board members, but also their age and nationality, since these are factors that can influence the knowledge, experience and skills of the directors. The results confirm a high degree of compliance with the recommendations of the Good Governance Code, and suggest that th…
Reaccionan Completamente los Precios ante un Anuncio de Adquisiciin? Evidencia en el Mercado de Control de Empresas Espaaol (Do Prices Fully React to Acquisition Announcements? Evidence from the Spanish Market for Corporate Control)
This note examines whether prices fully reflect value creation or destruction at the time of the acquisition announcement when samples are split into listed and unlisted target firms as previous international results are ambiguous about this subject. We find that the Spanish market fully react to the acquisition announcement (showing value creation only for unlisted target firms acquisitions), except for the smallest bidders of public targets since we find significant positive abnormal returns for a 24-month post-acquisition window when event portfolio returns are computed equally-weighted but insignificant abnormal returns when value-weighted returns are computed. This evidence is consiste…
ESTUDIO DEL EFECTO INFORMATIVO DEL ANUNCIO DE BENEFICIOS TRIMESTRALES
In this research we investigate whether quarterly earnings announcements are informative using awide sample of firms listed in the Spanish Stock Market (SIBE). We study the period comprised between thethird quarterly of 2002 and the fourth quarterly of 2003. We analyse whether abnormal returns are related tothe quarter in which the announcement is released, whether the announcement implies good or bad news forthe firm, the source of the information, the size of the firm and whether the firm is followed by analysts.Results show that quarterly earnings announcements are informative. We also obtain evidence of a possibleuse of insider information in the case of the announcements disclosed in t…
Corporate board and default risk of financial firms
This paper analyses the impact of corporate board structure on default risk of European banking firms. We focus on four core aspects of boards that have been addressed in Directive 2013/36/ EU to strengthen the corporate governance of banks: the size of boards, their independence, the participation of female directors and CEO duality. We employ panel data analysis to study the 109 European listed banks between 2002 and 2019. Default risk is estimated by Merton’s (1974) distance to default. We take into account the presence of unobservable heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity and estimate the model using the dynamic difference and dynamic system GMM methodologies. The results …
Female directors, capital structure, and financial distress
Abstract The composition of the board of directors is highly relevant to a firm’s capital structure and likelihood of financial distress. This study builds on the complementary proposals of agency theory and gender theories based on gender-differential behavior. We examine whether the gender diversity of the board affects firms’ capital structure (leverage, cost of debt, and debt maturity) and likelihood of bankruptcy. For a sample of European firms over the period 2002 to 2019, we find that the percentage of women directors is the most influential board characteristic in terms of capital structure decisions. This characteristic is negatively related to leverage, cost of debt, and debt matu…
The Informational Role of Thin Options Markets: Empirical Evidence of the Spanish Case (El Papel Informativo De Los Mercados De Opciones Estrechos: Evidencia Empprica Del Caso Espaaol)
English Abstract: This study investigates the informational role of thin options markets, specifically the Spanish options market. Firstly, we examine the effect of options markets by analysing stock market reaction to earnings news, conditional on the availability of options markets. Secondly, we examine options-trading activity before the release of earnings news (including the announcement period). Results show that the impact on prices before the earnings release is significantly bigger when options trading is available. Moreover, the dissemination of earnings news is associated with significant unusual activity in the options market due to informed trading, especially when the earnings…
Investor Inattention to All-Cash Acquisition Announcements: A Joint Day-Time Analysis in the Spanish Market
Prior studies suggest that investors have limited attention, which determines the speed with which information is incorporated into share prices and, in turn, affects the efficiency of the markets. Unlike other corporate events, the information contained in an acquisition announcement is generally less standard and more complicated to process. Therefore, investor inattention is less likely around this event. In this study we test the existence of investor inattention for a sample of all-cash acquisition announcements of listed and unlisted target firms released by listed Spanish firms from 1998 to 2018. Cash acquisitions allow us to control for the strategic behavior of overvalued companies…
Market valuation and acquiring firm performance in the short and long term: Out-of-sample evidence from Spain
We investigate bidder’s short- and long-term performance in periods of high and low valuation market in response to announcements of acquisitions carried out by Spanish listed firms over the period 1991–2016. We find that acquirers of unlisted targets fully react at the announcement date in high valuation periods, meanwhile the underreaction of listed target bidders at the moment of the announcement in low valuation markets is the result of return continuations. In addition, we find that the market reaction do not depend on recent merger history. Therefore, we provide evidence that bidder reaction to acquisitions is not consistent with the predictions of market sentiment (optimism) after c…
Corporate entrepreneurship and governance: Mergers and acquisitions in Europe
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are a form of corporate entrepreneurship involving strategic decisions that require discussion and approval by the board of directors of the acquiring firm. We focus on board attributes to analyze the entrepreneurial function of the board of directors and its involvement in corporate entrepreneurship. Building on different theories (agency theory, resource dependence theory, stewardship theory, and stakeholder theory), we examine whether board composition affects the number of acquisitions, the risk involved in bids, and the creation of value for the acquirer's shareholders. For a sample of European firms over the period 2002 to 2020, we find that board size a…