The Intra-Industry Effects of Proxy Contests

This paper is the first study on the intra-industry effects of proxy contests. Using a sample of proxy contests from January 1988 through December 2008, we identify a striking cross-sectional difference in market reaction to the target companies. As much as 61% of the target firms have significant positive cumulative abnormal return (CARs) in the period (‒10, +10) around the announcement day, while 39% of the target firms have the negative CARs in the same event window. Moreover, we find that the stock market reaction to the target firms’ competitors is primarily driven by the target-related factors when the market reacts favorably to a proxy contest. In contrast, the stock market reaction to the competitors is mainly affected by the competitor-related factors when the market reacts unfavorably to the proxy contest. We further reveal that competitors experience a significant negative abnormal stock return when the target firms receive negative market reactions, while competitors have no significant abnormal return when the target firms receive a positive market reaction. Our findings enrich the corporate governance research by showing the impact of the target firms’ corporate governance change on the firms’ competitors.