CEOs’ Military Experience, Agency Costs and Acquisition Decisions
43 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2011 Last revised: 25 Oct 2013
Date Written: September 23, 2011
Abstract
We examine the effect of a CEO’s military service on merger and acquisition decisions and outcomes. We find that acquirers led by CEOs with military backgrounds earn significantly higher abnormal stock returns at deal announcement, and these deals exhibit higher short-run and long-run synergies. In addition, we find that the presence of military CEO attenuates the negative effect of the poor corporate governance and excess cash on acquirer returns and short-run and long-run synergies. Overall, the evidence suggests that the value system developed in the military helps lower the agency costs in acquisitions and generates better acquisition outcomes. Taken together, our results suggest a channel through which the military background of a CEO might affect firm value.
Keywords: military service, agency costs, mergers and acquisitions
JEL Classification: G10, G34, G39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers
By Gregor Andrade, Mark L. Mitchell, ...
-
Do Managerial Objectives Drive Bad Acquisitions?
By Randall Morck, Andrei Shleifer, ...
-
Stock Market Driven Acquisitions
By Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny
-
Stock Market Driven Acquisitions
By Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny
-
Poison or Placebo? Evidence on the Deterrent and Wealth Effects of Modern Antitakeover Measures
By Robert Comment and G. William Schwert
-
Does Corporate Performance Improve after Mergers?
By Paul M. Healy, Krishna Palepu, ...
-
Managerial Performance, Tobin's Q, and the Gains from Successful Tender Offers
By Larry H.p. Lang, Ralph A. Walkling, ...