Now showing 1 - 10 of 20
  • Publication
    Media-expressed negative tone and firm-level stock returns
    We build a corpus of over 5½ million news articles on 20 large US firms over the 10-year period from January 2001 to December 2010, and use it to study the time-varying nature of the relation between media-expressed firm-specific tone and firm-level returns. By estimating a series of separate rolling window vector autoregressive (VAR) models for each firm, we show how media-expressed negative tone impacts firm-level returns episodically in ways that vary across firms and over time. We find that firms experience prolonged periods during which media-expressed tone has no effect on returns, and occasional episodes when it has a significant impact. During the significant episodes, its impacts are sometimes quickly reversed and at other times they endure — implying that media comment and analysis can sometimes be sentiment (or noise), but it can also contain value-relevant information or news. Our findings are in general consistent with efficiently functioning markets in which the media assists with the processing of complex information.
      1030Scopus© Citations 59
  • Publication
    Our iron takeover law
    (Financial Services Institute of Australasia (Finsia), 2000)
      276
  • Publication
    Information asymmetry and capital structure in SMEs : new technology-based firms in the Irish software sector
    This paper examines the capital structure of 117 new technology-based firms in the Irish software sector. In apparent contradiction to the pecking order hypothesis (POH), most external finance is private equity, and debt is virtually absent. We argue that this is consistent with the spirit of the POH – that firms prefer sources of finance associated with the least information asymmetry. For unlisted technology firms this is private equity. Using information on founders’ perceptions gathered via survey, we confirm that software firm founders perceive greater information asymmetries in debt than in equity markets, and they agree that issuing equity sends a positive signal about the value of their firm. Founders also perceive low tax benefits of debt, and very high levels of business risk.
      1469
  • Publication
    The early managed fund industry : investment trusts in 19th century Britain
    (University College Dublin. School of Business. Centre for Financial Markets, 2003-09)
    The early years of the 21st century have been a difficult and challenging time for the managed funds industry. The neglected history of managed funds reveals prior episodes of sustained growth, questionable practices, upheaval and inevitably, regulation. The first fully diversified managed fund appeared in Britain in 1868, and the industry remained largely a British preserve until the rise of the investment company and the mutual fund in the United States during the 1920s. This paper documents the features of the early trusts, discusses the rise of the industry and the challenges it survived in the early years, and draws parallels with facets of the finance industry of today.
      751
  • Publication
    Funds of hedge funds : not the poor cousins of the hedge fund industry
    (Financial Services Institute of Australasia (Finsia), 2006)
      191
  • Publication
    The Irish Aviation Authority's cost of capital : report to the Commission for Aviation Regulation
    (Commission for Aviation Regulation, 2007-03) ;
    The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) approach is used to estimate the IAA's cost of capital. To implement this approach, it is necessary to estimate the IAA's cost of equity, its cost of debt and its gearing ratio. Following a brief financial summary, the cost of equity is discussed in Section 3, the cost of debt is discussed in Section 4, the IAA's gearing is discussed in Section 5, and Section 6 brings these together in the WACC calculations to derive the estimate of the IAA's cost of capital.
      901
  • Publication
    Do private equity buyouts represent value for target shareholders? Premiums in the boom of the early 2000s
    (University College Dublin. School of Business. Centre for Financial Markets, 2008-04) ;
    This study compares the takeover premiums for 55 private equity buyouts with 59 takeovers involving a public acquirer, from the US takeover market between 2004 and 2007. This investigation takes place amidst accusations of anti-competitive behaviour against some of the most active private equity groups in the US. While controlling for several other factors that might affect the takeover premium, we find weak evidence that bid premiums are significantly lower for target firms undergoing a private equity takeover than those subject to takeovers by public companies. We also demonstrate that abnormal returns earned by targets around takeover announcements can be a biased and misleading proxy for takeover premium.
      281
  • Publication
    Is there a high technology pecking order? An investigation of the capital structure of NTBFs in the Irish software sector
    (University College Dublin. School of Business. Centre for Financial Markets, 2004-09) ;
    This paper examines the financing of 117 privately held new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in the Irish software product sector. We advance the high-technology pecking order hypothesis (HTPOH) to explain the dominance of external equity over debt in NTBFs. Using founders’ opinions and perceptions on various financing issues, we find evidence consistent with four implications of the HTPOH. Sample firm founders perceive low tax benefits of debt, and very high levels of business risk as reflected in pessimism about their likelihood of survival even with adequate financing. In addition, founders perceive greater information asymmetries in debt than in private equity markets. This finding is consistent with the spirit of Myers’ (1984) and Myers and Majluf’s (1984) pecking order hypothesis in that firms prefer sources of finance associated with the least information asymmetry. A related finding is that founders believe issuing equity sends a positive signal to clients, suppliers and financiers.
      466
  • Publication
    Capital structure in new technology-based firms : evidence from the Irish software sector
    (University College Dublin. School of Business. Centre for Financial Markets, 2004) ;
    Using a sample of 117 Irish software companies, we examine the capital structure of new technology-based firms. Consistent with the findings on financing for other small businesses, internal funds are the most important source of funding in new technology-based firms. However, in apparent contradiction to the pecking order hypothesis, the use of debt is rare and equity financing is the prime source of external finance. By questioning chief executive officers via survey on their perceptions and opinions on various financing issues, we are able to conclude that in many cases software firm founders prefer outside equity to debt. The dearth of debt in the capital structure of new technology-based firms cannot be wholly explained by financing constraints due to information asymmetries in the banking sector.
      3755
  • Publication
    The performance and diversification benefits of funds of hedge funds
    (University College Dublin. School of Business. Centre for Financial Markets, 2004) ;
    We examine the performance and diversification potential of 332 funds of hedge funds (FOHFs) for the period from January 1990 to May 2003. Consistent with prior studies, we find that FOHFs appear to underperform the hedge fund index on a risk-adjusted basis. However, FOHFs have characteristics that offset their apparent underperformance. Their returns do not suffer from negative skewness that is a feature of many hedge fund strategies. In addition, we find that FOHFs have lower correlations (than the hedge fund index) with stock indices in both bull and bear markets, making them a better diversification tool in equity portfolios. For bond portfolios, however, FOHFs have no diversification advantage over hedge fund indexing.
      796