Qualitative Research in Financial Markets Pub Date : 2020-06-10 , DOI: 10.1108/qrfm-08-2019-0094 Patric Andersson , Johan Graaf , Niclas Hellman
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how sell-side analysts form expectations on, analyse, and communicate the effects of corporate acquisitions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports on case studies of three listed firms who are frequent acquirers. The case data comprise semi-structured interviews and content analysis of analyst reports and corporate reports.
Findings
The paper reports three sets of findings. First, the analysts viewed acquisitions as heterogeneous events and, therefore, also treated acquisitions differently depending on factors such as size and acquisition strategy and the perceived “authenticity” of the acquisition (i.e. whether parts of the acquisition would be more accurately described as organic growth and regular capital expenditure (CAPEX) investments). Second, the authors find that analysts struggle with analysing the effects of acquisitions at the announcement date because of a mismatch between the analysts’ need of and the analysts’ access to relevant information. Although clients demand evaluations of announced acquisitions, relevant accounting information is not published until much later and the information at hand only allows for cursory analyses. Finally, the authors find that the analysts’ valuation models were too inflexible to fully incorporate the effects of the acquisition. In sum, the analysts, therefore, developed acquisition-driven investment cases without supporting accounting information and without converting expected acquisitions into forecasts.
Originality/value
By adopting a qualitative case study research design, the paper contributes to the ongoing efforts to open the “black-box” of sell-side analyst behaviour. In particular, the unique research design focusses on effects related to specific corporate events (acquisitions) rather than analysts’ everyday work.
中文翻译:
卖方分析师和公司收购:案例研究结果
目的
本文旨在研究卖方分析师如何形成对公司收购的期望,进行分析并传达其影响。
设计/方法/方法
该论文报告了三个经常被收购的上市公司的案例研究。案例数据包括对分析师报告和公司报告的半结构化访谈和内容分析。
发现
该论文报告了三组发现。首先,分析师将收购视为异质事件,因此,还根据大小和收购策略以及收购的“真实性”等因素对收购进行了不同的对待(即,是否将收购的某些部分更准确地描述为自然增长)和常规资本支出(CAPEX)投资)。其次,作者发现,由于分析师的需求与分析师对相关信息的访问不匹配,分析师在公告发布之日就难以分析收购的影响。尽管客户要求对已宣布的收购进行评估,但相关会计信息要等到很久以后才会发布,并且手头的信息仅允许进行粗略的分析。最后,作者发现,分析师的估值模型过于僵化,无法完全纳入收购的影响。总之,分析师在没有支持会计信息并且没有将预期收购转化为预测的情况下制定了收购驱动的投资案例。
创意/价值
通过采用定性的案例研究设计,本文为打开卖方分析师行为的“黑匣子”做出了不懈的努力。特别是,独特的研究设计着重于与特定公司事件(收购)相关的影响,而不是分析师的日常工作。