IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v59y2021i2p487-528.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Responding to Activist Short Sellers: Allegations, Firm Responses, and Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Janja Brendel
  • James Ryans

Abstract

This study provides descriptive evidence on how firms respond to activist short seller reports and how these responses are associated with outcomes for the targeted firms. We show that the frequency of these reports has grown substantially in recent years. Although we find that firms respond only 31% of the time, this rate increases substantially when the report is accompanied by significantly negative abnormal returns and when the report contains new evidence. Not responding is associated with a less negative stock price response at report release and fewer adverse outcomes. Firms that launch internal investigations following the report release have significantly higher subsequent rates of stock exchange delisting and SEC enforcement actions, and lower rates of being acquired. Overall, our results highlight the impact of activist short sellers on target firms and that firm responses are associated with material outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Janja Brendel & James Ryans, 2021. "Responding to Activist Short Sellers: Allegations, Firm Responses, and Outcomes," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 487-528, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:59:y:2021:i:2:p:487-528
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12356
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-679X.12356
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-679X.12356?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan M. Karpoff & Xiaoxia Lou, 2010. "Short Sellers and Financial Misconduct," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1879-1913, October.
    2. Gregory S. Miller, 2006. "The Press as a Watchdog for Accounting Fraud," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 1001-1033, December.
    3. Palmrose, Zoe-Vonna & Richardson, Vernon J. & Scholz, Susan, 2004. "Determinants of market reactions to restatement announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 59-89, February.
    4. Zuo, Luo, 2016. "The informational feedback effect of stock prices on management forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 391-413.
    5. Charles M. Jones & Adam V. Reed & William Waller, 2016. "Revealing Shorts An Examination of Large Short Position Disclosures," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(12), pages 3278-3320.
    6. Roland Benabou & Guy Laroque, 1992. "Using Privileged Information to Manipulate Markets: Insiders, Gurus, and Credibility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 921-958.
    7. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Cohen, Alma, 2003. "Firms' Decisions Where to Incorporate," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 383-425, October.
    8. Bockus, K & Gigler, F, 1998. "A theory of auditor resignation," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 191-208.
    9. Patricia M. Dechow & Weili Ge & Chad R. Larson & Richard G. Sloan, 2011. "Predicting Material Accounting Misstatements," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 17-82, March.
    10. Alexander Dyck & Adair Morse & Luigi Zingales, 2010. "Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2213-2253, December.
    11. Hemang Desai & K. Ramesh & S. Ramu Thiagarajan & Bala V. Balachandran, 2002. "An Investigation of the Informational Role of Short Interest in the Nasdaq Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2263-2287, October.
    12. Patricia M. Dechow & Richard G. Sloan & Amy P. Sweeney, 1996. "Causes and Consequences of Earnings Manipulation: An Analysis of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions by the SEC," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 1-36, March.
    13. repec:oup:revfin:v:29:y:2016:i:12:p:3278-3320. is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Shumway, Tyler, 1997. "The Delisting Bias in CRSP Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 327-340, March.
    15. Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, 2015. "Feedback Effects, Asymmetric Trading, and the Limits to Arbitrage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3766-3797, December.
    16. Clark, Kent & Ofek, Eli, 1994. "Mergers as a Means of Restructuring Distressed Firms: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(4), pages 541-565, December.
    17. Owen A. Lamont, 2012. "Go Down Fighting: Short Sellers vs. Firms," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30.
    18. Kim, Irene & Skinner, Douglas J., 2012. "Measuring securities litigation risk," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 290-310.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stolowy, Hervé & Paugam, Luc & Gendron, Yves, 2022. "Competing for narrative authority in capital markets: Activist short sellers vs. financial analysts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    2. Bessler, Wolfgang & Vendrasco, Marco, 2022. "Short-selling restrictions and financial stability in Europe: Evidence from the Covid-19 crisis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dan Amiram & Zahn Bozanic & James D. Cox & Quentin Dupont & Jonathan M. Karpoff & Richard Sloan, 2018. "Financial reporting fraud and other forms of misconduct: a multidisciplinary review of the literature," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 732-783, June.
    2. Badolato, Patrick G. & Donelson, Dain C. & Ege, Matthew, 2014. "Audit committee financial expertise and earnings management: The role of status," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 208-230.
    3. Clive Lennox & Petro Lisowsky & Jeffrey Pittman, 2013. "Tax Aggressiveness and Accounting Fraud," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 739-778, September.
    4. Fos, Vyacheslav & Appel, Ian & Bulka, Jordan, 2019. "Active Short Selling by Hedge Funds," CEPR Discussion Papers 13788, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Jian Zhang, 2018. "Public Governance and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from the Recent Anti-corruption Campaign in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(2), pages 375-396, March.
    6. Laure Batz, 2023. "Financial market enforcement in France," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 409-468, June.
    7. Lian Fen Lee & Alvis K. Lo, 2016. "Do Opinions on Financial Misstatement Firms Affect Analysts’ Reputation with Investors? Evidence from Reputational Spillovers," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1111-1148, September.
    8. Richardson, Grant & Obaydin, Ivan & Liu, Chelsea, 2022. "The effect of accounting fraud on future stock price crash risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    9. Haß, Lars Helge & Müller, Maximilian A. & Vergauwe, Skrålan, 2015. "Tournament incentives and corporate fraud," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 251-267.
    10. Dongmin Kong & Junyi Xiang & Jian Zhang & Yiyang Lu, 2019. "Politically connected independent directors and corporate fraud in China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(5), pages 1347-1383, March.
    11. Files, Rebecca, 2012. "SEC enforcement: Does forthright disclosure and cooperation really matter?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 353-374.
    12. Zhang, Jian & Wang, Jialong & Kong, Dongmin, 2020. "Employee treatment and corporate fraud," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 325-334.
    13. Shantaram Hegde & Tingyu Zhou, 2019. "Predicting Accounting Misconduct: The Role of Firm-Level Investor Optimism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 535-562, December.
    14. So-Jin Yu & Jin-Sung Rha, 2021. "Research Trends in Accounting Fraud Using Network Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-26, May.
    15. Dain C. Donelson & Justin Hopkins & Christopher Yust, 2015. "The Role of D&O Insurance in Securities Fraud Class Action Settlements," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4).
    16. Dyck, Alexander & Morse, Adair & Zingales, Luigi, 2023. "How pervasive is corporate fraud?," Working Papers 327, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    17. Dewan, Yasir, 2019. "Corporate crime and punishment : The role of status and ideology," Other publications TiSEM 08d87b94-7449-4a1f-a3ae-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Zvi Singer & Jing Zhang, 2022. "Do companies try to conceal financial misstatements through auditor shopping?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1-2), pages 140-180, January.
    19. Xin Xu & Feng Xiong & Zhe An, 2023. "Using Machine Learning to Predict Corporate Fraud: Evidence Based on the GONE Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(1), pages 137-158, August.
    20. An, Zhe & Chen, Chen & Naiker, Vic & Wang, Jun, 2020. "Does media coverage deter firms from withholding bad news? Evidence from stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:59:y:2021:i:2:p:487-528. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-8456 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.