Management Optimism and Corporate Acquisitions: Evidence from Insider Trading

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

11-1997

Abstract

In this study we integrate evidence about managers' personal beliefs about their firms' prospects into an analysis of managerial decisions on acquisitions and takeover resistance. We examine insider trading (a proxy for personal beliefs) around significant corporate acquisitions and find little cross-sectional differences in the trading patterns of all managers around an acquisition. In general, the insiders do not change their trading patterns in the period when their firm is making an important corporate acquisition. We still obtain this result after controlling for the announcement-day abnormal return. We also find that while managers of firms that do not become takeover targets themselves and of firms that are eventually targets of friendly bids earn positive abnormal returns in the period after their trade, this is not true for managers of firms that are later subject to a hostile bid.

Discipline

Business | Corporate Finance | Finance and Financial Management

Research Areas

Finance

Publication

Managerial and Decision Economics

Volume

18

Issue

7/8

First Page

693

Last Page

708

ISSN

1099-1468

Identifier

10.1002/(SICI)1099-1468(199711/12)18:7/8<693::AID-MDE864>3.0.CO;2-0

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1468(199711/12)18:7/8%3C693::AID-MDE864%3E3.0.CO;2-0

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