Australian divestitures and an alternative argument for explaining divestiture gains

Karl, Angela S. (2000). Australian divestitures and an alternative argument for explaining divestiture gains Honours Thesis, School of Business, The University of Queensland.

       
Attached Files (Some files may be inaccessible until you login with your UQ eSpace credentials)
Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads
THE14662.pdf Full text application/pdf 5.22MB 0
Author Karl, Angela S.
Thesis Title Australian divestitures and an alternative argument for explaining divestiture gains
School, Centre or Institute School of Business
Institution The University of Queensland
Publication date 2000
Thesis type Honours Thesis
Total pages 117
Language eng
Subjects 14 Economics
Formatted abstract Based on Australian divestiture activity, this thesis helps resolve the ambiguity as to the source of divestiture gains via a three-step procedure. First, using event study methodology it demonstrates that, analogous to US divestiture activity, Australian divestiture activity produces positive abnormal returns of 1.15% on average. Second, it rationalises previous research into two distinct paradigms within which the divestiture decision may be considered: the strategic or focus rationale and the financial rationale. By segregating the sample into 'strategic' and 'non-strategic' divestitures it finds that only the former category produce significant positive abnormal returns (of approximately 1.73% on average).

Finally, the announcement effect of the intended use of proceeds of sell-offs is examined. III support of the primary results, the abnormal returns accruing to firms who intend to retain the proceeds and use them for investment (strategic) activities (3.2%) are larger than those that accrue to firms intending to use the proceeds to pay down debt (1.9%). Despite, this it appears that the market prefers some information as to the use of proceeds as opposed to no information, as returns accruing to firms falling into the latter category were not significantly different from zero.


 
Citation counts: Google Scholar Search Google Scholar
Access Statistics: 41 Abstract Views, 0 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics
Created: Thu, 28 Oct 2010, 09:39:58 EST by Ning Jing on behalf of The University of Queensland Library