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Author: Daniel W. Collins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 42
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Book Description
This study seeks to provide insights into companies' decisions to issue stock options to CEOs on a scheduled or an unscheduled basis. We first document that unscheduled option awards provide CEOs with greater flexibility to influence the grant date stock price that leads to a lower exercise price of options and a higher accreted value realized at exercise. We then investigate whether the choice between unscheduled and scheduled awards is affected by the degree of CEO influence and the importance of stock options in CEO compensation. Consistent with expectations, we find that firms with greater CEO influence over compensation committees and boards and firms with greater use of stock options in CEO compensation are more likely to issue options to CEOs on an unscheduled basis. We also examine whether compensation committees and boards are effective in limiting CEOs' option timing manipulation for unscheduled awards and information timing manipulation for scheduled option awards. We find that, for firms that issue unscheduled options, boards that are less independent of management and that receive a greater proportion of director compensation from stock options allow greater management opportunism with respect to the timing of option awards. In contrast, for firms that issue scheduled options, we find no significant impact of board independence and director option compensation on the extent of management opportunism with respect to the timing of information releases around option awards.
Author: Daniel W. Collins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 42
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Book Description
This study seeks to provide insights into companies' decisions to issue stock options to CEOs on a scheduled or an unscheduled basis. We first document that unscheduled option awards provide CEOs with greater flexibility to influence the grant date stock price that leads to a lower exercise price of options and a higher accreted value realized at exercise. We then investigate whether the choice between unscheduled and scheduled awards is affected by the degree of CEO influence and the importance of stock options in CEO compensation. Consistent with expectations, we find that firms with greater CEO influence over compensation committees and boards and firms with greater use of stock options in CEO compensation are more likely to issue options to CEOs on an unscheduled basis. We also examine whether compensation committees and boards are effective in limiting CEOs' option timing manipulation for unscheduled awards and information timing manipulation for scheduled option awards. We find that, for firms that issue unscheduled options, boards that are less independent of management and that receive a greater proportion of director compensation from stock options allow greater management opportunism with respect to the timing of option awards. In contrast, for firms that issue scheduled options, we find no significant impact of board independence and director option compensation on the extent of management opportunism with respect to the timing of information releases around option awards.
Author: Wenli Huang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
Extant studies provide two additional explanations other than backdating for the abnormal stock returns around CEO option grants - timing of option grants and timing of corporate disclosures. We examine the effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), the stock option backdating scandal, and the new compensation disclosure rules of 2006 on these opportunistic timing behaviors. We find no evidence of opportunistic timing relative to scheduled option grants in the pre-SOX, post-SOX, and post-Backdating-Scandal periods. However, opportunistic timing behaviors for unscheduled option grants exist in the pre-SOX period and persist in the post-SOX period. In addition, we distinguish timing of option grants from timing of corporate disclosures by categorizing quarterly earnings announcements into fixed and variable dates and find the persistence of both types of timing behaviors. We also analyze option grants to independent directors and find no evidence of timing behaviors in all three sample periods. Overall, our results suggest that SOX does not affect opportunistic timing behaviors related to CEO option grants. However, the backdating scandal combined with the subsequent compensation disclosure rules have deterred these behaviors.
Author: Daniel W. Collins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 39
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Book Description
Section 403 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act accelerates the reporting deadline of executive stock option grants to be within two business days after the grants. This study investigates the effect of Section 403 on the extent of CEO influence over grant date stock prices aimed at enhancing the value of executive stock option awards. Prior studies find that executives affect the exercise price of options by influencing the timing of option awards, manipulating the timing of value-relevant information around option awards, or backdating the award in an attempt to lower the grant date stock price, thereby increasing the value of their options. We find that the accelerated reporting requirement of SOX 403 significantly reduces CEO influence over grant date stock prices in the post-SOX period. Specifically, we find that the accelerated reporting requirement (1) deters the opportunistic granting of unscheduled awards after bad news announcements and reduces, but does not eliminate, the opportunistic granting of unscheduled awards before good news announcements; (2) deters the delaying of good news announcements after scheduled option awards; and (3) greatly reduces the apparent use of backdating of option grants to lower the strike price. Thus, we provide important new evidence on the economic impact of SOX on mitigating executive opportunistic behavior associated with stock option grants.
Author: David Aboody
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
We investigate whether CEOs manage the timing of their voluntary disclosures around scheduled stock option awards. Because stock options generally are awarded with a fixed exercise price equal to the stock price on the award date, we conjecture that CEOs manage investors' expectations around award dates by delaying good news and rushing forward bad news. For a sample of 2,039 CEO option awards by 572 firms with fixed award schedules, we document changes in share prices and analyst earnings forecasts around award dates that are consistent with our conjecture. We also provide more direct evidence based on management earnings forecasts issued prior to award dates. Because our sample comprises scheduled awards, our findings cannot be attributed to opportunistic timing of the award. Overall, our findings provide evidence that CEOs of firms with scheduled awards make opportunistic voluntary disclosures that maximize their stock option compensation. Our study contributes to the literature on executive compensation by providing evidence consistent with CEOs managing investors' expectations around option award dates. Our study also is relevant to the literature on corporate voluntary disclosure, in that we find that top executives have compensation-related incentives to delay good news and rush forward bad news.
Author: David Yermack
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
This paper analyzes the timing of CEO stock option awards, as a method of investigating corporate managers' influence over the terms of their own compensation. In a sample of 620 stock option awards to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies between 1992 and 1994, I find that the timing of awards coincides with favorable movements in company stock prices. Patterns of companies' quarterly earnings announcements are consistent with an interpretation that CEOs receive stock option awards shortly before favorable corporate news. I evaluate and reject several alternative explanations of the results, including insider trading and the manipulation of news announcement dates.
Author: Yermack David
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 55
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Book Description
This paper analyzes the timing of CEO stock option awards, as a method of investigating corporate managers influence over the terms of their own compensation. In a sample of 620 stock option awards to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies between 1992 and 1994, I find that the timing of awards coincides with favorable movements in company stock prices. Patterns of companies quarterly earnings announcements are consistent with an interpretation that CEOs received stock option awards shortly before favorable corporate news. I evaluate and reject several alternative explanations of the results, including insider trading and the manipulation of news announcement dates.
Author: Vasiliki Athanasakou
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chief executive officers
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Liang Xiao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20
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Book Description
Abstract: In 2003, both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ enacted changes to the requirements regarding listed companies and their Board of Directors composition. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of those changes, specifically in relation to CEO compensation and compensation committees. Prior to the regulation changes, Yermack [1997] explored the topic of CEOs manipulating the timing of their stock option awards using their influence over their compensation committees. When Yermack originally conducted his study, regulations regarding Board of Directors composition were far more relaxed, and CEOs could sit on their own compensation committees. In my research, I look at the same timing issues Yermack studied, but for companies at a post-regulation change date. Specifically, I calculate the abnormal returns of stock returns of Fortune 500 companies and compare the timing of certain fluctuations in the stock values with the award date of CEO stock options. Furthermore, I consider the differences between the pre-change and post-change values to analyze the control effects the regulation changes had on CEO stock option awards. Through this study I consider whether the NYSE and NASDAQ regulation changes provided controls for the CEOs and prevented further manipulation of the CEO stock option award timing. With corporate governance at the forefront of many discussions due to the current financial crisis, this research should shed some light on what influence upper-level management still has on its own compensation.
Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674020634
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.
Author: David Yermack
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
