Value Creation in Shareholder Activism: A Structural Approach

86 Pages Posted: 28 Jul 2020 Last revised: 7 Sep 2020

See all articles by Rui A. Albuquerque

Rui A. Albuquerque

Boston College, Carroll School of Management; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Vyacheslav Fos

Boston College - Department of Finance; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Enrique J. Schroth

EDHEC Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 2020

Abstract

We model an investor's choice between filing Schedules 13D and 13G and use the model to estimate expected returns to activist and passive investing. Using the model, we decompose average Schedule 13D filing announcement returns into treatment (75.2%), stock picking (12.2%), and sample selection components (12.6%). The treatment component of Schedule 13D announcement returns predicts improvements in firm performance and a lower probability of a proxy contest, suggesting that our estimate of the treatment component identifies more effective activism campaigns. Counterfactual analysis shows that if all investors shared the private cost of activism, a large fraction of Schedule 13G filings would have been filed as Schedule 13D, resulting in substantial firm value gains.

Keywords: Passive investors, Shareholder activism, Stock picking, structural estimation, value creation

JEL Classification: C34, G14, G34

Suggested Citation

Albuquerque, Rui A. and Fos, Vyacheslav and Schroth, Enrique J., Value Creation in Shareholder Activism: A Structural Approach (July 2020). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP14995, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3650109

Rui A. Albuquerque (Contact Author)

Boston College, Carroll School of Management ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3808
United States

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/view/ruialbuquerque/home

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Vyacheslav Fos

Boston College - Department of Finance ( email )

Carroll School of Management
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3808
United States

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Enrique J. Schroth

EDHEC Business School ( email )

393, Promenade Des Anglais
Nice, 06202
France
+33493186939 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.edhec.edu/en/faculty-and-researchers/schroth-enrique-phd

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

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