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Chapter 19

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Takeover Defenses

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 1

Introduction

• Not all mergers are welcome

• Arsenals of devices were developed to defend against unwelcome proposals during the 1980s

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 2

• Possible motivations for takeover defenses

– Target is resisting to get a better price

– Management of target judges that company will perform better on its own

– Management is seeking to entrench itself

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 3

Strategic Perspectives

• Management and board of company must continuously reassess competitive environment

• All forms of M&A activities may impact firm both as threats and opportunities

– Main developments in industry

– Opportunities for adding critical capabilities to participate in attractive growth areas

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 4

– Opportunities for rolling-up fragmented industries into stronger firms

– Likelihood of firm to be rolled-up

– Improving or deteriorating sales to capacity relationships in industry

– Impact of consolidating mergers on capacity and cost structure

– Enhanced capabilities of competitors as a result of their merger activity

– Preemptive moves

– Responses to takeover bids

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 5

Financial Defensive Measures

• Efficiency

– One view: Highly efficient firms with favorable sales growth and high profitability margins provide defense against takeovers

– Alternative view: Highly efficient firms become good takeover targets

• Bidder firm seeks to learn from efficiencies of target

• Target firm may be viewed as undervalued

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 6

• Financial characteristics that make a firm vulnerable to takeover

– Low stock price in relation to replacement cost of assets or potential earning power

(low q-ratio)

– Highly liquid balance sheet with large amounts of excess cash, valuable securities portfolio, and significant unused debt capacity

– Good cash flows relative to current stock prices; low P/EPS ratios

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 7

– Subsidiaries or properties that could be sold off without significantly impairing cash flows

– Relatively small stockholdings under control of incumbent management

– Combinations of these factors can simultaneously make firm an attractive investment and facilitate its financing

• Firm's assets can be used as collateral for acquirer's borrowing

• Target's cash flows from operations and divestitures can be used to repay loans

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 8

• Financial defenses

– Increase debt — use borrowed funds to

• Repurchase equity

• Concentrate management's percentage holdings

– Increase dividends

– Loan covenants structured to force acceleration of repayment in event of takeover

– Liquidate securities portfolio

– Decrease excess cash

• Invest in positive net present value projects

• Return to shareholders in dividends or share repurchases

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 9

– Excess liquidity could be used to acquire other firms

– Divest subsidiaries that can be eliminated without impairing cash flows; or spin-offs to avoid large cash inflows

– Divest low-profit operations

– Undervalued assets should be sold

– Value increased by restructuring

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 10

Corporate Restructuring and

Reorganization

• Restructuring and reorganization policies can be used positively or defensively

• Reorganization of assets

– Asset acquisitions can be used to block takeovers

• Dilute ownership position of bidder by using equity in acquisitions

• Create antitrust problems for bidder

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 11

– "Selling off crown jewels" — firm may dispose of business segment in which bidder is most interested

– Reorganizing financial claims

• Debt-for-equity exchanges — increase leverage to levels unacceptable to bidder

• Dual-class recapitalizations — increase voting powers of insider groups to levels that would enable them to block tender offers

• Leveraged recapitalizations — incur huge amounts of debt, using proceeds to pay large cash dividends and increase ownership position of insiders — "scorched earth" policy

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 12

• Other strategies

– Joint ventures could represent liaisons that potential bidders might prefer to avoid

– ESOPs can be used to decrease voting shares available for tender

– MBOs and LBOs

• Widely used as defense against outside tender offer

• Management can take firm private

• Managers may turn to LBO specialist because their stock ownership position may increase more than in an outside tender offer

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 13

– Target firm may look for international partner

– Share repurchase can be used to defend against takeovers

• Increase ownership of insiders

• Low reservation price shareholders can be bought out — higher tender offer price needed for bid to succeed

– Proxy contest — aim is to change control group and make performance improvements

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 14

• Event studies

– Restructuring improves firm's efficiency: favorable stock price reaction

– Restructuring represents scorched-earth policy: negative stock price reaction

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Duty of Directors

• Business judgment rule: Directors must demonstrate to the courts that the best interests of shareholders have been served

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– Duty of directors to demonstrate sound business reasons to reject offer

– Duty of directors to approve only a transaction that is fair to shareholders and is best transaction available

– Duty of directors to fully explore independent competitive bids and obtain best offer

• Fairness opinion from an investment banking firm not sufficient

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 17

Greenmail

• Definition: Represents targeted repurchase of large block of stock from specified shareholders at premium to end hostile takeover threat

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• Two divergent views of greenmails

– Greenmailers damage shareholders

• Large block investors are corporate "raiders" who expropriate corporate assets

• Raiders' voting power used to give themselves excessive compensation and perquisites

• Raiders receive substantial premium, "looting" corporate treasury

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 19

– Greenmail brings about improvements

• Large block investors involved in greenmail force improvements in corporate personnel or in corporate strategies and policies

• Large block investors have stronger incentives and superior skills for evaluating potential takeover targets

• Managers make greenmail payments to buy time to turn around the firm

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 20

• Greenmail sometimes accompanied by standstill agreement

– Voluntary contract in which blockholder agrees not to make further investments in target company during specified period of time

– If no targeted repurchase is made, large blockholder agrees not to further increase ownership percentage of the firm

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 21

• Wealth effects of greenmail

– Announcement associated with negative return to shareholders of 2-3% (significant)

– Other studies find positive abnormal returns, both in initial "foothold" period and in full "purchase-to-repurchase" period

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 22

– Greenmail and standstill agreement

• Negative returns — standstill agreement viewed as reducing probability of subsequent takeover

• 40% of firms experience subsequent control change within three years of greenmail even with standstill agreement

– Positive market reaction if greenmail viewed as giving directors more time to work out better solution

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 23

• Antigreenmail developments

– Internal Revenue Code Section 5881 of

1986 — imposes 50% excise tax on recipient of greenmail payments

– Antigreenmail charter amendments

• Require management to obtain approval of majority or supermajority of nonparticipating shareholders prior to targeted repurchase

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 24

• Bhagat and Jefferis (1991)

– Proxy statements proposing antitakeover amendments include one or more of (other) antitakeover amendment proposals

– Sample of 52 NYSE-listed firms proposing antigreenmail amendments in 1984-1985

• 40 firms offered one or more antitakeover amendments

• 29 cases, shareholders had to approve or reject antitakeover provisions and antigreenmail amendments jointly

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 25

• Eckbo (1990)

– Average market reaction to charter amendments prohibiting greenmail payments weakly negative

– Subsample of firms with abnormal stock price runup over three months prior to mailing of proxy: Market reaction strongly positive

• Particularly true if runup associated with evidence or rumors of takeover activity

• Prohibition against greenmail removes barrier to takeovers with positive gains to shareholders

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 26

Strategic Actions

• Pac Man defense

– Definition: Target firm counteroffers for bidder firm

– Rarely used; usually designed not to be used

– Effective if target much larger than bidder

– Implies target finds combination desirable but seeks control of surviving entity

– Target gives up using antitrust issues as defense

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 27

– Extremely costly

• Could involve devastating financial effects for both firms

• Large amount of debt used to purchase shares could cripple firms

• Under state law, should both firms buy substantial stakes in each other, each could be ruled as subsidiaries of each other

• Severity of defense may lead bidder to disbelieve target will employ such defense

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 28

• White knight

– Definition: Target company chooses another company with which it prefers to be combined

– Alternative company preferred by target because:

• Greater compatibility

• New bidder may promise not to break up target or engage in massive restructuring

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 29

• White squire

– Definition: Modified form of white knight; white squire does not acquire control of target

– Target sells block of its stock to third party it considers to be friendly

– White squire may be required to vote its shares with target management

– Often accompanied by standstill agreement

• Limits amount of additional target stock white squire can purchase for specified period of time

• Restricts sale of its target stock, usually giving right of first refusal to target

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 30

– White squire often receives in return

• Seat on target board

• Generous dividend and/or

• Discount on target shares

– Preferred stock usually used in white squire transactions because it enables board to tailor characteristics of stock as described

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 31

Antitakeover Amendments

• Antitakeover amendments to firm's corporate charter generally impose new conditions on transfer of managerial control of firm — "shark repellents"

• 95% of proposed antitakeover amendments are ratified

– Management introduces amendments that it feels are sure of success

– Failure to pass might be taken as vote of no confidence

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 32

– Brickley, Lease, and Smith (1988)

• Institutional shareholders (banks, insurance companies) more likely to vote with management on antitakeover amendments

– Have continuing business relationships with management

– Pension funds, mutual funds, and college endowments more likely to be independent

• Blockholders participate more actively in voting than non-blockholders and may oppose proposals that appear to harm shareholders

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 33

– Jarrell and Poulsen (1987)

• Amendments having most negative effect on stock price are adopted by firms with lowest percentage of institutional shareholders and highest percentage of insider holdings

• Blockholders play monitoring role — institutional holders are well informed and vote in accordance with their economic interests

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 34

• Supermajority amendments

– Require shareholder approval by at least two-thirds vote (sometimes as much as

90%) for all transactions involving change in control

– Involve "board-out" clause that gives board power to determine when and if supermajority provisions will be in effect

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 35

• Fair-price amendments

– Supermajority provisions with board-out clause and additional clause waiving supermajority requirement if fair price is paid by bidder for all purchased shares

– Fair price — highest market price of target during a past specified period

– Defend against two-tier tender offers

– Least restrictive among class of supermajority amendments

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 36

• Staggered or classified boards

– Delay effective transfer of control following takeover

– Management's rationale is to assure continuity of policy and experience

– Examples:

• One-third of board stands for election to threeyear term each year

• Reduce effectiveness of cumulative voting because greater shareholder vote is required to elect single director

• Directors removable only for cause

• Limit number of directors to prevent "packing"

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 37

• Authorization of preferred stock

– Board authorized to create new class of securities with special voting rights

– Typically preferred stock issued to friendly parties in control contest (white squire)

– Historically, used to provide board with financing flexibility

– Could also include poison pill security to buy shares at a discount

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 38

• Other antitakeover actions

– Abolition of cumulative voting where it is not required by state law

– Reincorporation in state with more protective antitakeover laws

– Provisions with respect to scheduling of shareholder meetings and introduction of agenda items

– Antigreenmail amendments that restrict company's freedom to buy back raider's shares at premium

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 39

– Lock-in amendments to make it difficult to void previously passed antitakeover amendments

– Termination of overfunded pension plans —

(Iqbal, Shetty, Haley, and Jayakumar, 1999)

• Firms can remove a significant source of cash flows to bidder firms by liquidating excess assets

• Stockholders favor termination only when firm faced takeover and managerial ownership was high — view takeover as threat to their claim on excess pension assets

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 40

– Boyle, Carter, and Stover (1998)

• Studied antitakeover provisions adopted by mutual savings and loan companies converting to stock ownership (SLAs)

• Strength of insider ownership position after conversion substitutes for strong antitakeover provisions

– Low ownership firms associated with strong antitakeover protections

– High ownership firms adopted less extraordinary antitakeover protections

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 41

• Antitakeover amendments and corporate policy

– Garvey and Hanka (1999)

• Effects of antitakeover statutes on firm leverage

• Firms protected by state antitakeover statutes substantially reduced debt ratios

• Results not influenced by size, industry, or profitability

• Weak evidence that protected managers undertook fewer major restructuring programs

• Firms eventually covered by antitakeover legislation used greater leverage in years preceding adoption of statutes

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 42

– Johnson and Rao (1997)

• Compared financial attributes (based on income, expenses, investment, and debt) before and after antitakeover amendment adoptions

• For full sample, firms exhibited no significant differences from industry means except for decline in net income to total assets ratio

• Fair price amendments

– For non-fair price subsample, no significant differences from industry mean for any of financial attributes

– For fair price subsample, results similar to those of full sample

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 43

• Antitakeover amendments and shareholder returns

– General predictions

• Positive returns

– Announcement of antitakeover measure signals increased likelihood of takeover

– DeAngelo and Rice (1983) — shark repellents may help shareholders respond in unison to takeover bids

• Negative returns

– Antitakeover amendments reflect management entrenchment

– Comment and Schwert (1995) — decline of less than

1% for most types of antitakeover measures

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 44

– Empirical results difficult to interpret because of number of influences operating concurrently

• Antitakeover amendment may have been adopted to help management obtain better deal

• Announcement of takeover may have contagion effects on industry

– Positive runup in abnormal returns because of possibility of other takeovers

– Announcement of antitakeover amendments with typical

1% decline in shareholder wealth should be netted against prior positive runup

– 1% decline would be viewed as reflection of reduced probability of takeover being completed

– If 20% is typical runup, small negative event returns from announcement of antitakeover measures would have little power to deter takeovers

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 45

State Laws

• Background

– By 1982, 37 states passed first generation antitakeover laws

– First generation laws ruled to be preempted by

1968 Williams Act in Edgar v. MITE (1982)

– In 1987, Supreme Court reversed in Dynamic v.

CTS; ruled that state antitakeover laws were enforceable as long as they did not prevent compliance with Williams Act

– Many states passed new antitakeover statutes between 1987-1990

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 46

• Janjigian and Trahan (1996)

– Studied factors that influenced firms to opt out of protection under Pennsylvania

Senate Bill 1310 introduced on 10/20/89

– 20 opt out firms: significant -9.50% return

– 13 no-opt out firms: insignificant 9.15%

– Accounting performance of both groups deteriorated substantially from 1989 to 1992

– Firms that opted out had significantly better net profit margin, net return on assets, and operating return on assets in 1992

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 47

• Swartz (1996)

– Event date was passage of Pennsylvania

Antitakeover Law (Act 36 based on Senate

Bill 1310) on 4/27/90

– Event returns (CARs)

• Firms that opted out:

– For window [-130,+60] = -5.24% (not significant)

– For window [-60,+20] = 0.70% (not significant)

• Firms that did not opt out:

– For window [-130,+60] = -23.35% (significant)

– For window [-60,+20] = -4.71% (significant)

– Firms that opted out outperformed firms that did not

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 48

• Heron and Lewellen (1998)

– Reincorporations to establish stronger takeover defenses had significant negative returns

– Reincorporations to limit director liability to attract better qualified directors had significant positive returns

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 49

Poison Pills

• Background

– Definition: Creation of securities carrying special rights exercisable by triggering event such as accumulation of specified percentage of target shares or announcement of tender offer

– Make acquisition of control of target firm more costly

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 50

– Can be adopted by board without shareholders' approval

– Poison pill adoptions often submitted to shareholders for ratification even though not required to do so

– Use of poison pills requires justification to be upheld by courts — adoption of poison pills in the best interest of shareholders —

"business judgment rule"

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 51

• Types of plans

– Flip-over plans

• Bargain purchase of bidder's shares at some trigger point

• Weakness: If rights are exercisable only when bidder obtains 100% of company stock, bidder may buy just over 50% to obtain control

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 52

– Flip-in plans

• Bargain purchase of target's shares at some trigger point

• More widely used than flip-over plans

• Ownership flip-in provision allows rights holder to purchase shares of target at a discount if acquirer exceeds a shareholding limit — rights of bidder who triggered pill become void

• Some plans waive flip-in provision if acquisition is cash tender offer for all outstanding shares

(defend against two-tier offers)

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 53

• Dead-hand provisions

– Definition: Provision that grants board the ability to redeem or amend poison pill only by continuing directors — directors on the board prior to bidder's takeover attempt

– Provision strengthens board's position

• Board's ability to redeem poison pill gives it flexibility in negotiating with bidders

• Hostile bidder can put considerable pressure on the board by making premium cash bid conditional on redemption of pill

• Provision prevents bidder from achieving control of target's board which then removes pill

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 54

– In some 3,000 poison pills nationwide,

200 contained dead-hand features

– State laws

• New York court invalidated dead-hand provisions in Bank of New York v. Irving Bank

1988 case

• Other state courts upheld dead-hand provisions — Georgia approved dead-hand pill in Invacare v. Healthdyne Technologies

1997 case

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 55

– Some shareholders groups are critical of poison pills because they can be used to prevent takeovers

• Pension fund TIAA-CREF lobbied 35 companies to remove dead-hand pills

• Pressure from Counsel for Institutional

Investors and International Brotherhood of

Teamsters forced Phillip Morris to remove entire poison pill provisions

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 56

• Effects of poison pills on shareholder returns

– Malatesta and Walkling (1988) and

Ryngaert (1988) — Early event studies found about -2% impact on wealth

– Comment and Schwert (1995)

• Early studies covered only earlier one-fourth of adopted pills

• Sample of entire population of 1,577 poison pills adopted 1983 to 1991

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 57

• Wealth effects of poison pill adoption are diverse:

– May be viewed as signal for increased probability of takeover — positive influence on returns

– May enable managers to obtain better price in negotiations with bidder — positive influence on returns

– May deter takeovers — negative influence on returns representing expected present value of future takeover premiums lost

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 58

• Results

– Taking into account whether rumors of bid or actual bid made it likely that control premium was built into issuer's stock price at time of poison pill announcement:

Wealth effect = negative 2%

– Taking into account whether M&A news was announced at same time as pill:

Wealth effect = positive 3 - 4%

– Taking into account year of adoption

• In year-by-year results, only 1984 had negative wealth effects of 2.3% and 2.9%

• For later seven years, wealth effects positive by about 1% or less, significant only in 1988

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 59

– Systematic evidence indicates small deterrence effects from poison pills

– Only earliest pills (before 1985) associated with large declines in shareholders' wealth

– Takeover premiums higher when target firms are protected by state antitakeover laws or by poison pills

– Target shareholders gained even after taking into account deals that were not completed because of poison pills

– Decline in takeover activity in 1991 and 1992 resulted from general economic factors, not widespread use of antitakeover measures

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 60

Shareholder Activism

• Shareholders may seek to rescind antitakeover devices

• Bizjak and Marquette (1998)

– Sample 190 shareholder initiated proposals during 1987-1993

• Sample of firms that received shareholder proposals to rescind poison pills

• Matched sample of firms that adopted poison pills but did not receive shareholder proposals to rescind them

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 61

– Wealth effects

• Cumulative abnormal returns for three-day event window

– Proposal sample = -0.43%

– Matched sample = 1.35%

• Different announcement dates and event return windows

– Negative market reaction to initial shareholder proposal

– Positive market reaction to pill restructuring

– Shareholders become active when they are concerned about managerial actions that may impede market for corporate control

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 62

Poison Puts

• Definition: Poison puts or event risk covenants give bondholders right to put, at par or better, target bonds in event of change in control

– Protect against risk of takeover-related deterioration of target bonds

• Especially when leverage increases are substantial

• Began to be included in bond covenants in 1986

– Place potentially large cash demands on new owner, raising costs of acquisition

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 63

• Economic role and empirical studies

– Entrenchment hypothesis

• Puts made firms less attractive as takeover targets

• Predicted effects of poison puts

– Negative effect on shareholder returns

– No effect on debt-holder returns

– Bondholder protection hypothesis

• Puts protect bondholders from wealth transfers associated with debt-financed takeovers and leveraged recapitalizations

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 64

• Predicted effects of poison puts

– Impact on stock returns would be net of two opposite effects

• If takeovers motivated primarily by wealth transfer from bondholders to shareholders were deterred

— negative influence on shareholder returns

• Debt with event risk covenants could be issued at interest cost lower than unprotected debt; if interest cost savings outweighed forgone wealth transfer — nonnegative stock price reaction to sale of protected debt

– If puts and related covenants did not increase protection to existing debt, hypothesis predicts no effect on price of firm's outstanding debt

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• Empirical test:

– Test for difference in yield spreads at offering date for samples of protected and unprotected bonds

– Inclusion of event risk protection reduced required yields on protected bonds by 25-50 basis points in two studies and no effect in a third

• Wealth transfers from bondholders in leveraged buyouts

– No evidence of bondholder losses (Marais, Schipper, and Smith, 1989)

– Small losses (Warga and Welch, 1993)

– Losses depend on covenant protections — protected bonds did not experience losses while unprotected debt experienced significant losses

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 66

– Mutual interests hypothesis

• Both managers and bondholders seek to prevent hostile debt-financed takeovers

– Managers seek to protect their control positions

– Bondholders seek to avoid losses from deterioration in credit ratings

• Predicted effects of poison puts

– Stock price reactions would be negative

– Effects on price of existing debt would be positive

– Wealth effects for debt and equity would be negatively correlated

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 67

• Cook and Easterwood (1994)

– Issuance of bonds with poison puts caused negative returns to shareholders and positive returns to outstanding bondholders

– Control sample of straight bond issues without poison puts had no effect on stock prices — may be related to economic environment of study period

(1988 and 1989)

– Cross-sectional regression: Strong negative relation between returns for stocks versus returns for outstanding bonds for put sample but not for nonput sample

– Results consistent with mutual interests hypothesis

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 68

Golden Parachutes (GPs)

• Background

– Definition: Separation provisions of employment contract that compensate managers for loss of their jobs under change-of-control clause

– Provision usually calls for lump-sum payment or payment over specified period at full or partial rates of normal compensation

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– Extreme cases of GPs viewed as "rewards for failure"

– Cost of GPs estimated to be less than 1% of total cost of takeover — not considered to be an effective takeover defense

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 70

• Regulation

– Deficit Reduction Act of 1984

• Denies corporate tax deductions for "excess parachute payments"

• Executive has to pay additional 20% income tax on "excess parachute payments"

– GPs have to be entered into at least one year prior to date of control change to be legally binding

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 71

– GPs are triggered either when manager is terminated by acquiring firm or when manager resigns voluntarily after change of control

– Court can invalidate or grant preliminary injunctions against exercise of GPs especially when payment could be triggered by recipient

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• Rationale

– Implicit contracts

• Managers' real contribution to firm cannot be evaluated exactly in current period

• Optimal contract between managers and shareholders will include deferred compensation

• Since detailing all future possibilities and contingent payments in written contract is costly, long-term deferred contract largely implicit

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– Firm-specific investments by managers

• Managers not willing to invest in firm-specific skills and knowledge when likelihood of loss of job is high

• Managers may focus unduly on short term or even take unduly high risks if there is increased risk of losing job through takeover

– Encourage managers to accept changes of control that bring shareholders gains — reduce agency problem and transaction costs from managerial resistance

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 74

– Berkovitch and Khanna (1991) model

• Tender offer

– More desirable for target shareholders as more information is released in tender offers leading to competitive bidding for target

– Excessive GP payment will tend to motivate managers to sell firm at too low a gain

• Mergers — by tying payment to synergy gains in case of mergers, firm avoids misuse of GPs

– Other possible alternatives to GPs

• Stock options exercisable in event of change of control

• Increased stock ownership by management

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 75

• Silver and tin parachutes

– Silver parachutes — provide less generous severance payments to executives

– Tin parachutes

• Extend relatively modest severance payments to wider coverage of managers including middle management, and in some cases, cover all salaried employees

• Number of employees to be covered

– Jensen (1988) — contract should cover only those members of top-level management team involved in negotiating and implementing any transfer of control

– Coffee (1988) — control-related severance contracts should be extended to middle management

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• Returns to shareholders and GPs

– Hypotheses (Mogavero and Toyne, 1995)

• Alignment hypothesis

– Prearranged severance agreements reduced conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders

– GPs make executives more willing to support takeover offers beneficial to shareholders

– Positive gains to shareholders

• Wealth transfer hypothesis

– GPs reduce stock values by shifting gains from shareholders to managers

– GPs reduce probability of takeover bids by increasing costs to bidders

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– GPs reduce incentives for executives to manage firms efficiently

– GPs may indicate level of influence of management over boards

– Negative gains to shareholders

• Signaling hypothesis

– Signal of likelihood of future takeover, which would be associated with positive gains to shareholders

– Signal of increased management influence over boards, which would have negative implications

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 78

– Lambert and Larcker (LL) (1985)

• Period 1975-1982

• Adoption of GPs resulted in abnormal positive returns to shareholders = positive 3%

• Finding consistent with alignment hypothesis — cost of reducing conflicts of interest between management and shareholders low relative to potential gains from takeover premium

• Findings consistent with signaling hypothesis — from 1975 to 1982 relatively few firms adopted

GPs, so that GPs could be taken as signals of likely takeover

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– Born, Trahan, and Faria (1993)

• Period 1979-1989

• Sample firms that announced GPs while in process of being acquired

– There should be no takeover signal effect

– No significant abnormal stock returns

• Sample firms from 1979 through 1984 not in process of takeover when GPs adopted — positive stock returns

• Combined evidence consistent with takeover signaling hypothesis, but not with alignment hypothesis

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 80

– Hall and Anderson (1997)

• Sample of 52 firms that announced adoption of

GPs during 1982-1990

• Adoptions were for new contracts and not amendments

• Firms did not experience pre-existing takeover bids for three years prior to GP

• Mean CAR

– Window [-20,+20] = -1.21% (not significant)

– Announcement day = 0.46% (not significant)

– Window [-5,-2] = -1.19% (significant)

– Other event windows were not significant

– When three firms were excluded as possible outliers, for window [-5,0] = -1.29% (significant)

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 81

– Mogavero and Toyne (MT) (1995)

• Sample of 41 large firms with adoption dates from 1982-1990

• Full sample, CAR = -0.5% not significant

• Subsample of 18 firms from 1982-1985,

CAR = +2.3% not significant

• Subsample of 23 firms from 1986-1990,

CAR = -2.7% significant

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• Finding consistent with wealth transfer hypothesis

• Stock returns associated with GPs changed from positive for 1975-1982 period of LL study to negative for 1986-1990 in MT

– Associated with initiation of legislative restraints on

GPs that may have encouraged boards to adopt them to avoid further restrictions

– Shareholders in later years may have perceived adoption of GPs as unfavorable signals of management's ability to control directors in their interest at expense of shareholders

©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 83

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