Investment banking

The purpose of this study is to develop and empirically test theories on wealth effects surrounding acquisitions by investment bankers. The primary research objective deals with strong-form market efficiency. The test strives to determine if the results of information held by investment bankers are attributable to inside information or information that is available to anyone willing to research and analyze particular target firms. A second research objective is to examine why larger wealth effects are expected. Potential reasons examined include internal and external governance issues, as well as acquisition activity as a means of governance. Specific issues examined are (1) a change in the chief executive officer after acquisition, (2) a change in the board of directors after acquisition, (3) an increase in the debt ratio of the target firm after acquisition, (4) downsizing and/or exiting from an industry after acquisition, and (5) to stop the selection of poor acquisitions by the target firm. The relative size of the acquisitions is controlled for in both groups; economies of scale realized from horizontal or vertical acquisitions are controlled for in the case of the control group. A comparison of the wealth gains between the two groups reveals that investment bankers outperform non-investment bankers when the average holding period abnormal return is used as the wealth measure. However, when cumulative average abnormal returns are compared, the non-investment banker group realizes higher wealth gains than the investment bankers. In no case does either group outperform a market index, the S&P 500. The results of the wealth effect tests support strong-form market efficiency; investment bankers do not utilize private information to realize gains from closely-held information. Primarily, downsizing is associated with positive effects on the stock price returns of target firms in partial acquisitions by investment bankers. Non-investment banker partial acquisitions are characterized with a change in the chief executive officer of the target firm. This change, however, is negatively associated with the share price returns of the target firms.

Contemporary finance theory suggests that the appropriate goal of the management of a corporation should be to maximize the contribution of the shareholder's ownership in the corporation to the shareholder's wealth. A related objective of the firm's management that is consistent with this prime objective should be to minimize the cost of all inputs into the firm's income producing process. This would include minimizing the cost of the capital required to fund the firm's operations. This study examines the cost of debt to firms issuing new debt. Using a sample of new debt issues between 1988 and 1993 drawn from a listing compiled by the Capital Markets Division of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, this study finds that when underwriters are categorized by recent (last year) experience, the issuing firm's choice of an underwriter does not affect the offering yield required of the issuer in excess of several benchmark yields. Excess yield is tested with respect to 3-month treasury bills, 10-year constant maturity treasury securities, the average contemporary yield on AAA rated corporate bonds, and the average contemporary yield on new corporate issues carrying the same rating. The results do suggest that the issuing firm's choice of underwriter does affect the underwriter spread that the issuer will be charged. The implication of the results to corporate issuers of new debt is that choosing an experienced underwriter (defined in the study as having appeared in the listing of the top ten underwriters of corporate debt reported by Wall Street Journal in the previous year) could lead to reduced overall net interest costs stemming from the reduced underwriter spread.