Abstract

We show that a large number of firms adopt poison pills during periods of market turmoil. Specifically, during the coronavirus pandemic, many firms adopted poison pills following declines in valuations, and stock prices increased upon the announcement of firms’ poison pill adoption. Stock price increases are driven by (1) firms in which activist shareholders acquire ownership stakes and (2) firms in industries that had high exposure to the crisis. Likewise, we find a positive reaction to pills with provisions directed at stalling activists’ interventions. Our results suggest that crisis pills that target potentially disruptive ownership changes may benefit current shareholders. (JEL G30, G32, G34, G38, E32)Received August 14, 2020; editorial decision October 23, 2020 by Editor Andrew Ellul. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix,which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

中文翻译：

---

危机毒丸*

摘要

我们表明，在市场动荡时期，大量公司采用了毒药。具体而言，在冠状病毒大流行期间，许多公司在估值下降后采用了毒丸，而在宣布采用毒丸后，股价上涨。股价上涨的动力来自（1）激进股东在其中获得所有权的公司，以及（2）处于危机高风险行业的公司。同样，我们发现针对药丸的积极反应中有针对性地阻止了维权人士的干预措施。我们的结果表明，针对潜在的破坏性所有权变化的危机药可能会使现有股东受益。（JELG30，G32，G34，G38，E32）2020年8月14日收到; 编辑决定：编辑安德鲁·埃卢（Andrew Ellul）于2020年10月23日发表。作者提供了一个Internet附录，该附录可以在牛津大学出版社的网站上找到，也可以在线链接到最终发表的论文。