Publication:
Essays on shareholder activism and corporate governance

dc.contributor.advisor Adams, Renee en_US
dc.contributor.advisor Zein, Jason en_US
dc.contributor.author Balogh, Attila en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2022-03-15T08:42:30Z
dc.date.available 2022-03-15T08:42:30Z
dc.date.issued 2021 en_US
dc.description.abstract This dissertation consists of three essays on shareholder activism and corporate governance. The first essay develops and validates a method to identify shareholder activism campaigns using a data-driven approach based on investor characteristics. The proposed identification can replace or complement the current method used in finance research that identifies shareholder activism campaigns based on a subjective evaluation of regulatory filings. It overcomes the ambiguity associated with the current approach and allows for a more accurate and consistent examination of activism that is also replicable. I show that professional investment manager status, investment portfolio size, and track record of proxy solicitations are important determinants of board turnover, which is the most common channel for influencing control by activist investors. The second essay provides evidence that activist investors improve the operation of the director labor market and profit from its imperfections through their superior ability to match directors to firms based on the director's specific expertise. I show that long-term returns are higher when a director is appointed to the target, especially when their prior experience makes them a good fit. Understanding that complex turnaround campaigns are only launched when a matched director is available provides insights into the collective action problem of disengaged investors, which is inherent in the regular director nomination process. I also highlight that takeovers are a similar reallocation of human capital because the firm is matched to new managers and directors. This is an overlooked point in activism research that frames takeovers as an efficient reallocation of financial capital only. The third essay examines insider trading activity by blockholders and compares their performance to executives and directors. Blockholders are expected to be important monitors, yet the findings reveal that they are less informed because their trades earn significantly lower abnormal returns compared to other insiders that purchase their company's stock. Using insider trading data extracted directly from regulatory disclosure allows for a classification of investor types and the examination of heterogeneity in trading patterns for different blockholder groups. I show that active blockholder trades are significantly more informative compared to other financial blockholders, indicating that they are considered active monitors by the market. en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/70772
dc.language English
dc.language.iso EN en_US
dc.publisher UNSW, Sydney en_US
dc.rights CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 en_US
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ en_US
dc.subject.other Director labor market en_US
dc.subject.other Shareholder activism en_US
dc.subject.other Corporate governance en_US
dc.subject.other Insider trading en_US
dc.subject.other Blockholders en_US
dc.subject.other Investor attention en_US
dc.subject.other Hedge funds en_US
dc.title Essays on shareholder activism and corporate governance en_US
dc.type Thesis en_US
dcterms.accessRights open access
dcterms.rightsHolder Balogh, Attila
dspace.entity.type Publication en_US
unsw.accessRights.uri https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
unsw.date.embargo 2023-04-19 en_US
unsw.description.embargoNote Embargoed until 2023-04-19
unsw.identifier.doi https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/2251
unsw.relation.faculty Business
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Balogh, Attila, Banking & Finance, UNSW Business School, UNSW en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Adams, Renee, University of Oxford en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Zein, Jason, Banking & Finance, UNSW Business School, UNSW en_US
unsw.relation.school School of Banking & Finance *
unsw.thesis.degreetype PhD Doctorate en_US
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