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There is little evidence in the literature on the relative importance of the underlying sources of merger gains. Prior literature suggests that synergies could arise due to taxes, market power, or efficiency improvements. Based on Value Line forecasts, we estimate the average synergy gains in a broad sample of 264 large mergers to be 10.03% of the combined equity value of the merging firms. The detailed data in Value Line projections allow for the decomposition of these gains into underlying operating and financial synergies. We estimate that tax savings contribute only 1.64% in additional value, while operating synergies account for the remaining 8.38%. Operating synergies are higher in focused mergers, while tax savings constitute a large fraction of the gains in diversifying mergers. The operating synergies are generated primarily by cutbacks in investment expenditures rather than by increased operating profits. Overall, the evidence suggests that mergers generate gains by improving resource allocation rather than by reducing tax payments or increasing the market power of the combined firm.

This paper examines whether the presence of interlocked directors on a board is associated with weak governance. For a sample of 3,566 firm-years spanning 2001 to 2003, we find that firms with lower industry-adjusted firm performance are more likely to have interlocked directors. We document that shareholders react negatively to the formation of director interlocks and find that the presence of interlocked directors is associated with lower than optimal pay-performance sensitivity of CEO incentive compensation and reduced sensitivity of CEO turnover to firm performance. Collectively, our results suggest that the presence of interlocked directors is indicative of weak governance.

This paper provides evidence of a \"Potential conflict of interest by equity analysts\" who issue recommendations for investment banks that are related to their own bank through syndication. Analysts issue significantly more optimistic recommendations for investment banks with which their bank is syndicated. Recommending banks upgrade their recommendations just before a relation is initiated, suggesting that they use analyst optimism as a means of currying favor with the syndicate lead in hopes of being invited to join. It also appears that as part of a quid pro quo of sorts, relatively optimistic recommendations are rewarded with more syndicate appointments in the year after the recommendations.

Extant REIT research largely overlooks operating leases as an alternative source of financing. In this study, we hand-collect lease information of 334 unique REITs over the period of 1993 to 2018, and we document that an increasing number of REITs have been including operating leases in their capital structure to finance income-generating investment properties. We examine the determinants of the operating lease decision and find that REITs which adopt operating leases tend to be larger and have more growth opportunities as measured by Tobin’s Q. But they also have higher leverage, report lower funds from operations, and higher risk. We further find that operating lease intensity for REITs is negatively affected by credit ratings, but not by growth opportunities. Lastly, we examine the market effect related to operating lease decision and find that REITs with operating leases are associated with lower shareholder returns. Overall, our findings imply that operating leases are employed as an alternative financing source by REITs that are highly levered and cannot rely much on their internal funding. As a result, the market does not view the use of operating leases in the REIT sector favorably.

This paper examines whether gains in bank megamergers occur due to efficiency improvements or the exercise of market power using financial statement line item forecasts from Value Line to infer the effect of the merger on prices and quantities. The average megamerger is associated with cost-efficiency improvements. In the cross-section, efficiency gains are limited to market expansion mergers while market overlap mergers and Too-Big-To-Fail (TBTF) mergers exhibit monopoly gains. Efficiency gains dissipate when the resulting megabank size exceeds $150 billion in assets or 1.5% of gross domestic product indicating that banks thought to be TBTF are likely to be \"Too-Big-To-Be-Efficient.\"

REITs hold relatively little cash and access capital markets often due to their favorable dividend tax status. The transparent nature of REITs, in theory, implies low information asymmetry. However, we present evidence that this phenomenon is temporal. We find that information asymmetry is relatively low when REITs access the capital markets, when compared to non-accessing periods, based on bid-ask spreads for a large number of REITs. Further, we find that REIT size and turnover affect bid-ask spreads, but the pattern of lower bid-ask spreads surrounding capital market access does manifest itself when we investigate subsamples, dependent on size and turnover. Our findings are consistent with the idea that REITs increase their disclosure when they access the capital markets, which in turn lowers information asymmetry.

The Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) market has become an increasingly important vehicle for alternative investment for equity investors. While existing research examining the cross-section of REIT returns usually employs standard risk factors in the in-sample models, it can only show the ex-post performance of REIT portfolios. The goal of our paper is to examine the ex-ante performance of REIT portfolios (i.e., the ability of investors to earn abnormal returns in real time). We employ the out-of-sample methodology of Cooper, Gutierrez, and Marcum (2005), and show that ex-ante performance of REIT portfolios is rather weak. For about half of our 19-year sample over the period of 1999 to 2017, the portfolio performances of REITs chosen ex-ante do not beat the performances of the FTSE-NAREIT or the CRSP Equal-Weighted index. After adjusting for transaction costs, the REIT portfolios significantly further underperform their benchmarks. Overall, our findings suggest that the market is relatively efficient in the REIT sector, and it is difficult for investors to devise trading strategies that improve the ex-ante performance of REIT portfolios, based on standard risk factors.

In this study, we examine the asymmetric effect of positive and negative real estate news on REIT market returns. While findings in the general stock market show a greater market reaction to negative news, we find that the REIT market reacts predominantly to positive rather than to negative real estate news. We show that the content of positive real estate news becomes significantly related to REIT market returns in the modern REIT era and in recession periods. We further find that the asymmetric market reaction to positive real estate news is apparent only in REITs with high institutional ownership and REITs that report high rental income. Our findings imply that the REIT market's diversification benefits and its unique institutional features could be the driving factors for the asymmetric market responses. In additional analysis, we show that there exists little market reversal in subsequent periods, implying that REIT investors respond to the information contained in the news content and do not solely act on their sentiment. Lastly, we show that our findings are robust to alternative news and return measures.

Collectively, institutional investors hold large ownership stakes in REITs. The traditional view is that institutions are both long-term and passive investors. The financial crisis beginning in 2007 provides an opportunity to analyze the investment choices of institutional investors before, during, and after the crisis. Our results indicate that institutional ownership increased prior to the financial crisis, declined significantly during the period of market stress, but rebounded after. These results hold for four institutional investor subtypes: mutual funds/investment advisors, bank trusts, insurance companies, and other institutions, with mutual funds/investment advisors and bank trusts most clearly exhibiting this pattern. We also find evidence that institutions actively manage their REIT portfolios, displaying a “flight to quality” after the market downturn by reducing beta and individual risk exposure, and by increasing ownership in larger REITs.

Optimism around Initial Public Offerings is well documented. However, Seasoned Equity Offerings are often surrounded by less optimism. Based on analyst forecast properties for a large number of REITs, we find that REIT analysts tend to be relatively optimistic after IPOs, whereas this tends not to be the case surrounding SEOs. Our results are more pronounced when REITs are bigger and have more analysts following them. Our results are robust for a number of multivariate specifications. Our findings suggest that possible underperformance of REITs after the IPO may be caused by over-optimistic investors.