Firm characteristics and long-run stock returns after corporate events

Hendrik Bessembinder and Feng Zhang

Journal of Financial Economics, 2013, vol. 109, issue 1, 83-102

Abstract: The well-documented abnormal long-run buy-and-hold returns to firms issuing equity in initial public offerings and seasoned equity offerings, firms bidding in mergers, and firms initiating dividends can be attributed to imperfect control-firm matching. In addition to firm size and market-to-book ratio, event firms on average differ from control firms in terms of idiosyncratic volatility, liquidity, return momentum, and capital investment, each of which also explains returns. We propose a simple regression-based approach to control for differences in firm characteristics across event and control firms, and we show that long-run abnormal returns do not differ significantly from zero for event firms in the 1980 to 2005 period. The returns to event firms are, therefore, consistent with patterns known to exist for the broad stock market and do not require event-specific explanations.

Keywords: Firm characteristics; Long-run stock returns; BHARs; Wealth relative; Calendar time portfolio method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G32 G34 G35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:109:y:2013:i:1:p:83-102

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.02.009

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