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An empirical study of a financial signalling model

University of British Columbia

Brennan and Kraus (1982,1986) developed a costless signalling model which can explain why managers issue hybrid securities—convertibles(CB's) or bond-warrant packages(BW's). The model predicts that when the true standard deviation (σ) of the distribution of future firm value is unknown to the market, the firm's managers will issue a hybrid with specific characteristics such that the security's full information value is at a minimum at the firm's true σ. In this fully revealing equilibrium market price is equal to this minimum value. In this study, first the mathematical properties of the hypothesized bond-valuation model were examined to see if specific functions could have a minimum not at σ = 0 or σ = ∞ as required for signalling. The Black-Scholes-Merton model was the valuation model chosen because of ease of use, supporting empirical evidence, and compatibility with the Brennan-Kraus model. Three different variations, developed from Ingersoll(1977a); Geske( 1977,1979) and Geske and Johnson(1984); and Brennan and Schwartz(1977,1978), were examined. For all hybrids except senior CB's, pricing functions with a minimum can be found for plausible input parameters. However, functions with an interior maximum are also plausible. A function with a maximum cannot be used for signalling. Second, bond pricing functions for 105 hybrids were studied. The two main hypotheses were: (1) most hybrids have functions with an interior minimum; (2) market price equals minimum theoretical value. The results do not support the signalling model, although the evidence is ambiguous. For the σ range 0.05-0.70, for CB's (BW's) 15(8) Brennan-Schwartz functions were everywhere positively sloping, 11(2) had an interior minimum, 22(0) were everywhere negatively sloping, and 35(12) had an interior maximum. Market prices did lie closer to minima than maxima from the Brennan-Schwartz solutions, but the results suggest that the solution as implemented overpriced the CB's. BW's were unambiguously overpriced. With consistent overpricing, market prices would naturally lie closer to minima. Average variation in theoretical values was, however, only about 5 percent for CB's and about 10 percent for BW's. This, coupled with the shape data, suggests that firms were choosing securities with theoretical values relatively insensitive to a rather than choosing securities to signal σ unambiguously.

Text

2010-07-27

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26969

Business Administration

University of British Columbia

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