- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
Takeover Defenses
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 1
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 15
• Business judgment rule: Directors must demonstrate to the courts that the best interests of shareholders have been served
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 16
– 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
• Definition: Represents targeted repurchase of large block of stock from specified shareholders at premium to end hostile takeover threat
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 18
• 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
• 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 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 65
• 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
• 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 69
– 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 72
• 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 73
– 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 76
• 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 77
– 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 79
– 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
©2001 Prentice Hall Takeovers, Restructuring, and Corporate Governance, 3/e Weston - 82
• 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