Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Finance
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
This dissertation contains two essays in corporate Finance. The first essay is on accelerated share repurchases (ASRs) and the second essay is on corporate inversions.
In my first essay, I investigate the use of stock buybacks, specifically accelerated share repurchases, to meet or beat the analysts’ forecasts of EPS. I find that when the companies want to repurchase their stocks in an effort to meet or beat the EPS expectations, they are more likely to choose accelerated share repurchases (ASRs) rather than open market repurchases (OMRs). Interestingly, upon announcements, these EPS motivated ASRs experience strongest market reaction among all the ASRs. I also find evidence of a significant discount on the stock price of the ASR announcing firms that miss the analysts’ consensus EPS forecasts in the repurchasing quarters. I hypothesize that the habitual beaters among the repurchasing firms and firms whose earnings are consistently assessed by the investors to be highly informative, as measured by earnings response coefficients, are more likely to conduct EPS motivated ASRs. I also find results in support of signaling undervaluation hypothesis for ASRs.
In my second essay, I examined a sample of 65 corporate expatriations of US corporations that happened since 1982, of which 43 are classified as inversions. An expatriation that results from a US company acquiring a foreign subsidiary and then reincorporating in the country of that foreign subsidiary with a relatively lower tax rate while keeping majority of the ownership in the US is classified as inversion. The non-physical nature and complex valuation of intangible assets make them good candidates to be used by corporations as tax avoiding vehicles. While transferring intangibles to a subsidiary with a low tax domicile using an effective income repatriating strategy can help US corporations reduce their tax payments, apparent costs to it incentivize them to rather expatriate to a low tax region. I hypothesize that intangible assets are major contributing factors to inversions. I also find strong positive market reaction to the inversion announcements.
Date
6-27-2018
Recommended Citation
Rafi, Nurul Alam, "Essays in Corporate Finance" (2018). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4644.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4644
Committee Chair
Slawson, Vester Carlos
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.4644