La performance boursière à long terme des émetteursd'obligations convertibles :Cas du marché français (1990-2001)

This paper investigates empirically the effect on the long-term stock price performance of the convertible bonds issuance decision in France. Our sample consists of 92 public convertible bonds offerings made by 87 operating firms during the period 1990-2001.After corroborating the significantly short-run price adjustment around convertible bonds offeringannouncements, widely documented in numerous studies in French market, we demonstrate, using different methodologies and benchmarks, that issuing firms experience a substantial decrease in stock profitability from the month of issue to their three-year anniversaries. This evidence leads us to consider convertible bonds issuance as an under-reaction event.Our evidence is not consistent with the market-timing hypothesis of convertible bonds issuance, in which investors are periodically overoptimistic about the long-term prospects of the issuers and managers take advantage of this window of opportunity.Our study also focuses on the cross-sectional differences in the long-run abnormal returns of convertible bonds issuers in order to uncover factors affecting the level of the firm stock price performance after the offering.