Three essays on corporate finance

• Main Author: KANG, Mengyao
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Mergers and acquisitions; CEO experience; Board connections; Information leakage; Corporate Finance
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/170; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1170&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This dissertation has three essays in corporate finance. In the first chapter, We investigate whether a CEO’s experience with mergers matter when her firm becomes a takeover target? We find that shareholders receive higher premiums when their CEO has experience. The evidence suggests this is due to learning rather than innate skills or selection. Consistent with superior negotiation of salient features of takeover offers, experienced target CEOs obtain either safer cash payments or higher premiums as the fraction of cash in the offer decreases. These benefits do not come at the cost of other contractual concessions or inefficiencies in takeover negotiations. Overall, the results suggest that M&A experience is valuable when the CEO’s firm becomes a takeover target.