Level Of Institutional Ownership Research Articles

Categorizing sentiment and its impact on REIT returns

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the impact of investor sentiment on real estate investment trust (REIT) returns using direct, survey-based measures of sentiment to categorize sentiment from institutional and individual investors.Design/methodology/approach– The authors provide a framework in which sentiment is classified into individual and institutional investor sentiment under the assumption that investors, depending on sophistication, react differently to the same set of information and will influence REIT prices differently. The authors employ a methodology that uses panel regression analyses and divides the sample of REITs into size and performance portfolios.Findings– The regression results suggest that institutional investor sentiment is positively and significantly related to REIT returns contemporaneously for multiple sample specifications. These results are consistent with high levels of institutional ownership in REITs. Results also suggest that individual investor sentiment only influences small capitalization and low-αportfolios.Originality/value– The findings provide more evidence on the influence of investor sentiment on security pricing even for highly regulated sectors such as the REIT industry. Investors may use changes in sentiment as signals for portfolio rebalancing and capital allocations.

International Real Estate Review

This study addresses the unsettled question of whether REITs behave similarly to stocks with respect to calendar anomalies. We determine the magnitudes of several types of calendar anomalies for both the REIT and stock market index returns in 22 countries between 1990 and 2012. In general, our evidence shows that the calendar effects are not universal across countries and that REITs behave differently from their stock counterparts in a number of countries. The difference in behavior is especially evident around the turn of the month where REITs exhibit significantly higher returns than general stocks in the global sample as well as in 7 of the 22 countries examined. This result may be possibly linked to the higher level of institutional ownership in REITs than stocks in their corresponding market during the period examined.

The Influence of Insiders and Institutional Owners on the Value, Transparency, and Earnings Quality of Chilean Listed Firms

In 1980, Chile privatized its social security system, and currently there are five private pension funds managing approximately US$83 billion worth of retirement investments. The regulations provide for pension funds to appoint a member to the board of directors, and influence the appointment of auditors. Thus, institutions are playing a major role in Chile's transition a market-based financial system. The study uses data from 70 firms from 1995-2005 to test the impact of these institutional changes on firm value, transparency levels and earnings quality. The study finds that insider ownership levels and institutional ownership positively affects firm value but these factors, and the pension fund representation on firm boards negatively affects the transparency index. Further, institutional ownership levels also encourage the entrenched owners to use positive discretionary accrual to manage earnings. Using agency theory, we suggest that high insider ownership levels are an equilibrium that helps managers co-opt institutions by providing access to information, which bestows private benefits control to stakeholders aligned with entrenched insiders' interests.

Determinants and Economic Consequences of Non-financial Disclosure Quality

This paper examines the determinants and economic consequences of non-financial disclosure quality, which is measured according to the ratings of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Netherlands. We find that firms with better CSR performance, greater external financing needs, and stronger corporate governance tend to provide higher quality CSR disclosures. In return, these firms gain greater analyst coverage, higher levels of institutional ownership, greater stock liquidity, higher valuations in SEOs, and lower yields to maturity in bond issuances. These benefits apply largely to firms with strong CSR performance. Collectively, our findings suggest that higher quality CSR disclosures deliver economic benefits.

Determinants and Value of Enterprise Risk Management: Empirical Evidence From the Literature

AbstractThe development of an enterprise risk management (ERM) program enables companies to manage corporate risks in a holistic manner as opposed to the silo‐based perspective in traditional risk management frameworks. One main question in this regard is what factors drive the implementation of an ERM system in companies and whether ERM programs can actually create value once implemented. This article addresses these questions by conducting a comparative assessment of empirical evidence from the literature regarding the determinants of ERM and its value once implemented. In doing so we are able to illustrate differences in model specifications and the underlying data. Our literature study shows that particularly the company size and the level of institutional ownership are significantly positively related to the implementation of ERM in most empirical studies and, furthermore, that ERM generally has a (significant) positive impact on corporate value and performance (to a different extent and depending on the focus of the studies). However, geographic and/or industrial restrictions regarding the underlying data sets partly limit the generalization of the empirical results.

Sneaking in the back door? An evaluation of reverse mergers and IPOs

I examine whether the financial reporting quality of firms that access capital markets through reverse mergers differs from that of firms that rely on the traditional and more onerous IPO process. Using a broad sample of reverse merger firms and a propensity-score matched sample of IPOs, I find that reverse merger firms exhibit lower earnings quality as measured by several earnings attributes established in prior literature: accrual quality, earnings persistence, earnings predictability, cash persistence, cash predictability, earnings smoothness, timeliness, and value relevance. I document similar results for firms with low levels of institutional ownership. Differences in earnings quality, however, are attenuated for reverse merger firms with higher levels of institutional ownership. Given recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions against Chinese reverse merger firms, I also use a difference-in-differences technique and find that the lower financial reporting of reverse merger firms is actually driven by the non-Chinese reverse merger firms.

The level and stability of institutional ownership and its influence on company performance in South Africa

Institutional ownership in companies is an important tool in monitoring and controlling the business interests of the shareholders. This study investigated whether the performance of the Top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange is influenced by the level, and stability of institutional ownership. A regression analysis was used to test the relationship between Tobin’s Q and return on assets and the international, domestic and total institutional ownership and the stability of institutional shareholding. It was found that institutional shareholding is an important corporate governance factor to improve firm value. International institutional shareholding has an effect on future firm value, whilst domestic institutional, total institutional shareholding and the stability of total institutional shareholding has an effect on historical firm value.

Corporate governance and initial compliance with IFRS in emerging markets: The case of income tax accounting in Egypt

The paper examines the corporate governance factors and the independent audit quality as determinants of compliance with IFRS recognition and disclosure requirements of income tax accounting in Egypt. Using the initial IFRS adoption in Egypt, the results show evidence that corporate governance factors that indicate the sophistication level of both company's management and owners (i.e., institutional ownership and foreign representation on the board) and the perceived quality of the engaged auditor improve compliance with IFRS requirements. Companies with higher levels of institutional ownership and foreign representation on the board are more likely to engage an audit firm with international affiliation and comply with IFRS recognition and disclosure requirements. The results underline the significance of professional development and regulations of local audit industries in emerging countries for actual compliance with IFRS requirements when they are officially adopted in these countries.

Foreign Portfolio Investment and Stock Market Volatility in India

Although, it is a generally held belief that foreign portfolio flows benefit the economies of recipient countries, policy-makers worldwide have perennial discomfort about such investments. Such portfolio flows are widely termed as hot money, given its notorious volatility compared to other forms of capital flows as foreign investors make sudden and concerted withdrawals of portfolio investments at the faintest smell of trouble in the host country, thereby accelerating and magnifying the inconspicuous problem of the downfall in stock prices, often leading to disastrous consequences to the host economy. The discussion is often emphasized by the financial press due to the visible evidence of their contemporaneous nature at times of economic crisis. Relationship between foreign institutional ownership and volatility is largely inconclusive. Although the literature in business newspapers and also some previous empirical studies suggest that institutions tend to destabilize prices by increasing turnover levels, there are some good reasons to believe that higher levels of institutional ownership could be negatively related to volatility. In this present study, using firm-level Indian panel data from 2003 to 2013, we analyzed the association between stock's return volatility and their FII holdings in a VAR framework. The results showed that no significant causal relationship exists between the two variables.

Foreign Portfolio Investment and Stock Market Volatility in India

Although, it is a generally held belief that foreign portfolio flows benefit the economies of recipient countries, policy-makers worldwide have perennial discomfort about such investments. Such portfolio flows are widely termed as "hot money," given its notorious volatility compared to other forms of capital flows as foreign investors make sudden and concerted withdrawals of portfolio investments at the faintest smell of trouble in the host country, thereby accelerating and magnifying the inconspicuous problem of the downfall in stock prices, often leading to disastrous consequences to the host economy. The discussion is often emphasized by the financial press due to the visible evidence of their contemporaneous nature at times of economic crisis. Relationship between foreign institutional ownership and volatility is largely inconclusive. Although the literature in business newspapers and also some previous empirical studies suggest that institutions tend to destabilize prices by increasing turnover levels, there are some good reasons to believe that higher levels of institutional ownership could be negatively related to volatility. In this present study, using firm-level Indian panel data from 2003 to 2013, we analyzed the association between stock's return volatility and their FII holdings in a VAR framework. The results showed that no significant causal relationship exists between the two variables.

Excess of the PBO over the ABO and hard pension freezes

This paper examines the role of the excess of the projected benefit obligation (PBO) over the accumulated benefit obligation (ABO) in hard pension freezes. Using a sample of 109 firms that announced hard freezes during the period 2003–2008, I find that firms with a larger excess of the PBO over the ABO are more likely to hard freeze their pension plans. Furthermore, I document an average abnormal return of more than 1.2 % on the announcement day for the freeze firms. More importantly, the cumulative abnormal returns around pension freeze announcements are positively associated with the excess of the PBO over the ABO, and this positive association is more pronounced for firms with a higher level of institutional ownership, suggesting that institutional investors are more likely to understand the impact of hard pension freezes on firm value by incorporating pension information disclosed in the footnotes. Overall, this study provides evidence that firms shift away from defined benefit plans through pension freezes, and also highlights the importance of considering the excess of the PBO over the ABO in research on hard pension freezes.

Information asymmetry around operational risk announcements

Operational risk incidences are likely to increase the degree of information asymmetry between firms and investors. We analyze operational risk disclosures by US financial firms during 1995–2009 and their impact on different measures of information asymmetry in the firms’ equity markets. Effective spreads and the price impact of trades are shown to increase around the first announcements of such events and to revert after the announcement of their settlement. This is especially pronounced for internal fraud and business practices related events. Market makers respond to higher information risk around the first press cutting date by increasing the quoted depth to accommodate an increase in trading volumes.The degree of information asymmetry around operational risk events may be influenced by the bank’s risk management function and the bank’s governance structure. We indeed find that information asymmetry increases more strongly after events’ first announcements when firms have weaker governance structures—lower board independence ratios, lower equity incentives of executive directors, and lower levels of institutional ownership. In contrast, the firms’ risk management function has little to no impact on information asymmetry. We interpret this as evidence that the risk management function is primarily driven by regulatory compliance needs. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of information asymmetry around operational risk announcements. They help to shed light on the role that regulation and corporate governance can play in order to establish effective disclosure practices and to promote a liquid and transparent securities market.

Asymmetric Responses to Earnings News: A Case for Ambiguity

ABSTRACTThis study empirically examines the role of shocks to macro-uncertainty in shaping the responses of stock market participants to firm-specific earnings news. Specifically, I find that investors place greater weight on bad news following an increase in macro-uncertainty. By contrast, I find that investors place equal weight on both good and bad news following a decrease in macro-uncertainty. Furthermore, my findings show that these effects are more pronounced (1) for firms whose prior returns are more correlated with macro-uncertainty, (2) for firms that experience abnormally low trading volume during the earnings announcement, (3) for firms with relatively lower levels of institutional ownership, and (4) for firms with relatively higher information uncertainty. In sum, these findings provide novel empirical evidence that investors behave in a manner consistent with ambiguity aversion, with the effects strongest among unsophisticated investors.

Asymmetric Responses to Good and Bad News: An Empirical Case for Ambiguity

This study empirically examines the role of shocks to macro-uncertainty in shaping the responses of stock market participants to firm-specific earnings news. Specifically, I find that investors place greater weight on bad news following an increase in macro-uncertainty. By contrast, I find that investors place equal weight on both good and bad news following a decrease in macro-uncertainty. Furthermore, my findings show that these effects are more pronounced 1) for firms whose prior returns are more correlated with macro-uncertainty, 2) for firms that experience abnormally low trading volume during the earnings announcement, 3) for firms with relatively lower levels of institutional ownership and 4) for firms with relatively higher information uncertainty. In sum, these findings provide novel empirical evidence that investors behave in a manner consistent with ambiguity-aversion, with the effects strongest among unsophisticated investors.

Earnings Management Constraints and Classification Shifting

AbstractPrior literature has investigated three forms of earnings management: real earnings management (REM), accruals earnings management (AEM) and classification shifting. Managers make trade‐off decisions among these methods based on the costs, constraints and timing of each strategy. This study investigates whether managers use classification shifting when their ability to use other forms of earnings management is constrained. We find that when REM is constrained by poor financial condition, high levels of institutional ownership and low industry market share, managers are more likely to use classification shifting. Further, we find that when AEM is constrained by low accounting system flexibility and the provision of a cash flow forecast, managers are more likely to use classification shifting. In addition, when we limit our sample to firms that are most likely to have manipulated earnings, we continue to find support for constraints of both REM and AEM leading to higher levels of classification shifting. We also find support for the hypothesis that the timing of each earnings management strategy influences managers’ trade‐off decision. Our results indicate that managers use classification shifting as substitute form of earnings management for both AEM and REM.

Corporate social responsibility and stock price crash risk

This study investigates whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) mitigates or contributes to stock price crash risk. Crash risk, defined as the conditional skewness of return distribution, captures asymmetry in risk and is important for investment decisions and risk management. If socially responsible firms commit to a high standard of transparency and engage in less bad news hoarding, they would have lower crash risk. However, if managers engage in CSR to cover up bad news and divert shareholder scrutiny, CSR would be associated with higher crash risk. Our findings support the mitigating effect of CSR on crash risk. We find that firms’ CSR performance is negatively associated with future crash risk after controlling for other predictors of crash risk. The result holds after we account for potential endogeneity. Moreover, the mitigating effect of CSR on crash risk is more pronounced when firms have less effective corporate governance or a lower level of institutional ownership. The results are consistent with the notion that firms that actively engage in CSR also refrain from bad news hoarding behavior, thus reducing crash risk. This role of CSR is particularly important when governance mechanisms, such as monitoring by boards or institutional investors, are weak.

Pay performance sensitivity and earnings restatements

We examine whether the board of directors adjusts the sensitivity of CEO compensation to earnings following an earnings restatement. Using a sample of 598 restating firms and 2,065 non-restating firms during the period of 1995-2011, we find that firms decrease the sensitivity of cash compensation to accounting earnings after restatements and that this decrease is more pronounced for firms that appoint new CEOs after restatements than those whose CEOs continue to remain in office after restatements. Furthermore, the results suggest that the decrease in the sensitivity of cash compensation to earnings for restating firms with new CEOs is more pronounced for firms with a higher level of institutional ownership. This highlights the monitoring role of institutional investors in the redesign of compensation contracts following restatements. Overall, our results are consistent with the argument that the board adjusts the sensitivity of cash compensation to earnings downwards following restatements to constrain earnings management and recover public confidence in the firm.

Local Business Cycles and Local Liquidity

This study examines whether state-level economic conditions affect the liquidity of local firms. We find that liquidity levels of local stocks are higher (lower) when the local economy has performed well (poorly). This relation is stronger when local financing constraints are more binding, the local information environment is more opaque, and local institutional ownership levels and trading intensity are higher. Overall the evidence supports the notion that the geographical segmentation of U.S. capital markets generates predictable patterns in local liquidity.

Institutional Ownership, Diversification, and Riskiness of Bank Holding Companies

AbstractWe examine the relationship among the level and stability of institutional ownership, diversification, and riskiness of publicly traded bank holding companies. We find that large and stable institutional ownership is associated with a higher (lower) level of geographic, revenue, and nontraditional banking (asset) diversification and lower risk, suggesting that institutional investors are prudent and favor risk‐reducing diversification strategies. The association between institutional ownership level and diversification is more pronounced under deregulation and during the crisis, suggesting a substitution effect between regulation and market discipline, and a greater level of monitoring and/or advising by institutional investors during the crisis, respectively.

Commonality in Liquidity and its Determinants: An Empirical Examination of Stocks Listed on National Stock Exchange of India

A stock’s liquidity and its variability over time are of major concern for all the stakeholders of capital markets. Literature shows that market participants prefer liquid stocks and a stock’s exposure to liquidity commonality is inversely proportional to market returns. Although the burgeoning literature on liquidity commonality shows that stocks have significant commonality, the major sources that cause it are yet unknown. Some studies have shown evidence for the supply-side determinants of liquidity commonality driven by funding constraints faced by market participants and some studies show evidence for the demand-side sources of liquidity commonality related to the correlated trading activity, level of institutional ownership. In this paper, we study the evolution of liquidity commonality over time by using quarterly data from 2001-2009 for NSE listed stocks and then determine the supply-side and demand-side sources of systematic liquidity. We construct Amihud’s liquidity measure using daily data as a proxy for liquidity and estimate liquidity commonality of each stock on a quarterly basis from the market model time series regression of Chordia, Roll, and Subrahmanyam (2000). We find significant evidence of liquidity commonality for the sample period and also size effects in liquidity commonality. We find that supply-side sources of liquidity commonality significantly explain liquidity commonality, whereas, the demand-side sources are not significant in explaining liquidity commonality.