No abstract

We examine how corporate insiders pledging their equity stakes to collateralise personal loans influences firm cost of debt. Pledging enables managers to diversify personal holdings, potentially increasing risk‐taking incentives. However, exposure to contingent risks creates potentially stronger risk‐reducing incentives. Using hand‐collected data with OLS, difference‐in‐differences, and instrumental variables models, we find significant decreases in yield spreads associated with executive share‐pledging. Reductions in spreads surrounding share‐pledge disclosures suggest investors update their risk assessment to reflect pledging managers’ risk‐taking incentives. Consistent with risk‐reducing incentives, firms with share‐pledging executives subsequently reduce leverage.

Using new data on S&P 1500 firms' chief executive officer (CEO)-to-employee pay ratios disclosed by mandate of Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act, we examine the effect of within-firm pay inequality on bond yield spreads.We find a significant negative relation between industryadjusted CEO-to-employee pay ratio and yield spreads while controlling for covariates and endogeneity. This result is strongest in financially constrained, labor-intensive, and small-to-medium-sized firms. The evidence supports the incentive-provision explanation of CEO-to-employee pay disparity, reflecting efficient CEO compensation rather than rent extraction. We also document selection bias in selfreported pay ratios, highlighting the efficacy of the Dodd-Frank provisions.

PurposeAmid growing attention from investors, regulators and advisory firms in recent years, this study assesses whether managers exploit private information to time share-pledge transactions and extract personal benefits while avoiding unintended market scrutiny.Design/methodology/approachWe use hand-collected pledging data for a random sample of S&P 1500 firms to examine whether private information influences insider share-pledging activity using Heckman selection and two-part hurdle models of the pledge decision. We also conduct an event study analysis of announcement returns to measure market reactions to pledging news and determine whether share-pledge disclosures affect investor risk assessments.FindingsConsistent with insiders timing pledges prior to anticipated performance declines, both the likelihood and level of pledging increase significantly with negative earnings surprises. New share-pledges precede significant decreases in abnormal returns, and public announcement of new pledging corresponds with significant negative cumulative abnormal returns. The evidence suggests that insiders exploit private information to time pledges, and that investors update risk assessments and value estimates based on information conveyed by these transactions.Practical implicationsOur findings hold important implications for governance and regulation of pledged shares, indicating that permissive reporting requirements in the US facilitate informed pledging and may undermine incentive alignment between managers and shareholders. The analysis promotes transaction-specific disclosures and transparent corporate policies for insider share-pledging.Originality/valueOurs is among the first empirical analyses of share-pledging in US firms and the first to examine the role of private information in pledging decisions. We offer novel evidence on the opportunistic use of pledged shares and provide insight to predictors of share-pledging behavior.

No abstract