Purpose

This paper investigates the relationship between a firm's susceptibility to a hostile takeover and investors' reactions to a seasoned equity offering (SEO).

Design/methodology/approach

The study applies ordinary least squares (OLS) with fixed effects regression analyses to a sample of 2,517 observations from US listed companies. Event study methodology was employed to capture market reactions to the announcement of newly issued stocks. To achieve cross-sectional analyses, time variations in takeover laws allowed us to perform the desired tests across two decades of data.

Findings

The results suggest that investors react positively to the announcement of an equity offering when the threat of hostile takeover is higher. The magnitude of positive stock market reactions varies over two decades due to time series variations in takeover laws. Furthermore, the findings show that a higher hostile takeover index (HTI) score reduces investors' concerns about the inefficient usage of proceeds in acquisitions.

Practical implications

The results demonstrate that the corporate takeover legal environment provides an important external governance mechanism through which investors' confidence increases during an SEO event. The study's empirical evidence implies that the extent of external disciplinary mechanism plays a significant role in reducing investors' uncertainty about the misuse of raised capital.

Originality/value

The exogenous fast-evolving legal environment surrounding the takeover market in the United Status allowed our study to bypass the endogeneity concerns in measuring governance strength. From the review of prior literature, this paper appears to be the first to use HTI scores to examine investors' reactions to a corporate announcement.

中文翻译：

---

敌意收购的威胁和经验丰富的股票发行成本

目的

本文调查了公司对敌意收购的敏感性与投资者对经验丰富的股票发行 (SEO) 的反应之间的关系。

设计/方法/方法

该研究将具有固定效应回归分析的普通最小二乘法 (OLS) 应用于来自美国上市公司的 2,517 个观察样本。事件研究方法被用来捕捉市场对新发行股票公告的反应。为了实现横断面分析，接管法的时间变化使我们能够对二十年的数据进行所需的测试。

发现

结果表明，当敌意收购的威胁较高时，投资者对股票发行的公告反应积极。由于收购法的时间序列变化，股票市场积极反应的幅度在二十年内有所不同。此外，调查结果表明，较高的敌意收购指数 (HTI) 得分可减少投资者对收购中收益使用效率低下的担忧。

实际影响

结果表明，公司收购法律环境提供了一种重要的外部治理机制，通过该机制，投资者在 SEO 事件中的信心增强。该研究的经验证据表明，外部纪律机制的程度在降低投资者对募集资金滥用的不确定性方面发挥着重要作用。

原创性/价值

围绕美国收购市场的外生快速发展的法律环境使我们的研究能够绕过衡量治理实力的内生性问题。从对先前文献的回顾来看，本文似乎是第一个使用 HTI 分数来检查投资者对公司公告的反应的论文。