IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ysm/somwrk/ysm107.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When Do Bidders Purchase a Toehold? Theory and Tests

Author

Listed:
  • Arturo Bris

Abstract

Most of the theoretical literature on tender offers has been devoted to illustrating the positive effects of the toehold on the bidder's profits. Empirical research, however, shows that a high proportion of bidders do not trade on the target's shares prior to the tender offer announcement. This paper presents a model in which the bidder trades in the open market before announcing a tender offer and the incumbent shareholders form beliefs about the rival's quality given the order size. Market liquidity allows the potential bidder to partially hide her trade, and thus insiders are not able to ascertain whether an increase in volume indicates toehold acquisition. Stock price prior to the announcement date and market perception about the probability of a takeover are therefore contingent on players actions. We show that in some situations no trade will be optimal, and a negative relationship between takeover premium and toehold size arises. Interestingly, stock liquidity and initial stake are positively related. Our results also provide a theoretical basis for the observed pre-bid stock price dynamics. In particular, we show that the ratio between price runup and bid premium is increasing in the toehold size. The model's implications are then tested with a sample including tender offers in the US and the UK, estimating a bivariate generalization of the tobit model. We find a broad support for the model and significant differences across countries. We show that toeholds and probability of an acquisition are negatively related, and that companies in which the appropriation of private benefits of control is more

Suggested Citation

  • Arturo Bris, 1998. "When Do Bidders Purchase a Toehold? Theory and Tests," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm107, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Aug 2000.
  • Handle: RePEc:ysm:somwrk:ysm107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://icfpub.som.yale.edu/publications/2570
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bradley, Michael & Desai, Anand & Kim, E. Han, 1988. "Synergistic gains from corporate acquisitions and their division between the stockholders of target and acquiring firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 3-40, May.
    2. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean-Luc Vila, 1994. "Insider Trading without Normality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(1), pages 131-152.
    3. Burkart, Mike, 1995. "Initial Shareholdings and Overbidding in Takeover Contests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1491-1515, December.
    4. Schwert, G. William, 1996. "Markup pricing in mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 153-192, June.
    5. Sanders, Ralph W. & Zdanowicz, John S., 1992. "Target Firm Abnormal Returns and Trading Volume around the Initiation of Change in Control Transactions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 109-129, March.
    6. Meulbroek, Lisa K, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Illegal Insider Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1661-1699, December.
    7. Mark Bagnoli & Barton L. Lipman, 1996. "Stock Price Manipulation Through Takeover Bids," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(1), pages 124-147, Spring.
    8. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1995. "What Do We Know about Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1421-1460, December.
    9. Israel, Ronen, 1991. "Capital Structure and the Market for Corporate Control: The Defensive Role of Debt Financing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1391-1409, September.
    10. Keown, Arthur J & Pinkerton, John M, 1981. "Merger Announcements and Insider Trading Activity: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 855-869, September.
    11. Hirshleifer, David & Titman, Sheridan, 1990. "Share Tendering Strategies and the Success of Hostile Takeover Bids," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 295-324, April.
    12. Albert S. Kyle & Jean-Luc Vila, 1991. "Noise Trading and Takeovers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(1), pages 54-71, Spring.
    13. Jennings, Robert H & Mazzeo, Michael A, 1993. "Competing Bids, Target Management Resistance, and the Structure of Takeover Bids," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(4), pages 883-909.
    14. Sanford J. Grossman & Oliver D. Hart, 1980. "Takeover Bids, the Free-Rider Problem, and the Theory of the Corporation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 42-64, Spring.
    15. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    16. Jarrell, Gregg A & Poulsen, Annette B, 1989. "Stock Trading before the Announcement of Tender Offers: Insider Trading or Market Anticipation?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 225-248, Fall.
    17. Raghavendra Rau, P. & Vermaelen, Theo, 1998. "Glamour, value and the post-acquisition performance of acquiring firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 223-253, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bris, Arturo, 2002. "Toeholds, takeover premium, and the probability of being acquired," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 227-253, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bris, Arturo, 2002. "Toeholds, takeover premium, and the probability of being acquired," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 227-253, July.
    2. Arturo Bris, 1998. "When Do Bidders Purchase a Toehold? Theory and Tests," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm107, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Aug 2000.
    3. Eckbo, B. Espen, 2009. "Bidding strategies and takeover premiums: A review," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 149-178, February.
    4. Arturo Bris, 2005. "Do Insider Trading Laws Work?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(3), pages 267-312, June.
    5. Jeremy Bulow & Ming Huang & Paul Klemperer, 1999. "Toeholds and Takeovers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 427-454, June.
    6. Martynova, M. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2006. "The Performance of the European Market for Corporate Control : Evidence from the 5th Takeover Wave," Discussion Paper 2006-118, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    7. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Ravid, S. Abraham & Spiegel, Matthew, 1999. "Toehold strategies, takeover laws and rival bidders," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(8), pages 1219-1242, August.
    9. Asquith, Daniel & Kieschnick, Robert, 1999. "An Examination of Initial Shareholdings in Tender Offer Bids," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 171-188, March.
    10. Agrawal, Anup & Nasser, Tareque, 2012. "Insider trading in takeover targets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 598-625.
    11. Goldman, Eitan & Qian, Jun, 2005. "Optimal toeholds in takeover contests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 321-346, August.
    12. Bhagat, Sanjai & Dong, Ming & Hirshleifer, David & Noah, Robert, 2005. "Do tender offers create value? New methods and evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 3-60, April.
    13. Panunzi, Fausto & Mueller, Holger, 2003. "Tender Offers and Leverage," CEPR Discussion Papers 3964, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Francesca Cornelli & David D. Li, "undated". "Risk Arbitrage in Takeovers," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 17-98, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    15. Armo Gomes, 2001. "Takeovers, Freezeouts, and Risk Arbitrage," Penn CARESS Working Papers c4679b705ea88aebda985c6da, Penn Economics Department.
    16. Carroll, Carolyn & Griffith, John M., 2010. "Toeholds, rejected offers, and bidder gains: Do rebuffed bidders put targets in play to profit from their toeholds?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 214-221, May.
    17. David Ettinger, 2009. "Takeover Contests, Toeholds and Deterrence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(1), pages 103-124, March.
    18. Shelton, Lois M., 2000. "Merger market dynamics: insights into the behavior of target and bidder firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 363-383, April.
    19. Francesca Cornelli & David D. Li, 2002. "Risk Arbitrage in Takeovers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 837-868.
    20. Cornelli, Francesca & Li, David Daokui, 1998. "Risk Arbitrage in Takeovers," CEPR Discussion Papers 2026, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ysm:somwrk:ysm107. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/smyalus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.