Does the stock prices of oil companies affected by the announcement of a corporate name changes? This paper investigates the North American oil firms undergo name changes from 2000 to 2005. We report a significantly positive abcdrmal return (12.5%) and abcdrmal trading volume on the event day for the overall 125 companies in our sample. During the period of crude oil price surges after 2004, we find a tendency of increasing number of firms add oil to their corporate names to signal their links with the oil markets. In the U.S., the CARs of firms add oil in their corporate names show positive effects on their stock prices. Their pre-event excess returns are not offset by post-event drift, especially in the oil hot period. Interestingly, we find that firms delete oil names in the oil hot period suffer a significant negative CAR in the post-event period. We provide evidence that major name changes are more beneficial than minor name changes in the North America oil companies, and name changes affect stock prices more positively for smaller companies than for big firms on event day. Between the U.S. and Canada, we show that there are the different CAR trends for each country. The information leakage period is longer in Canada than the U.S. It is seen that a firm with a resource unrelated activities adds an oil name, it would earn a permanent CAR. The overall results in our study suggest that the announcement of corporate name changes of oil companies convey important information to the stock market regarding their corporate images and identifies. Investors appear to respond enthusiastically to the word “oil” in corporate names because of the relationship with a glamorously lucrative and potentially growing oil prices.

本文包含兩篇文章，分別探討國際市場公司改名對企業股價與借款成本的影響。從本文的實證分析結果得知，國際市場公司改名對公司股票價格與其貸款成本有截然不同的影響。 Cooper, Dimitrov and Rau (2001)與Cooper et al. (2005)發現當網際網路興盛時，不論公司業務主體是否與網際網路有關，於公司名稱加入與網路有關文字之公司其股價報酬上升且維持一段時間；然而，當網際網路衰弱時，將公司名稱刪除網路字樣之公司，其股價出現顯著異常報酬，使得股東財富增加。鑒於近年來國際石油價格急遽上升，之後又逢美國次級房貸風暴因而暴跌，國際石油價格的波動走勢提供本文第一篇文章之研究動機。本文第一篇文章的研究目的在於探討當國際石油價格持續上升時，國際市場公司是否傾向變更其公司名稱，將其公司名稱加入「石油」或「原油」等相關之文字，透過公司名稱的變更提高企業價值；而當國際石油價格急速下降時，國際市場公司是否反而傾向將其公司名稱刪除「石油」或「原油」等相關之文字，以防止股價下跌。此外，由於美國與加拿大地理位置與文化相近，過去文獻常將兩者作比較。顧此，本文進一步探討美國公司與加拿大公司更名對企業股價的影響是否有顯著地差異。 本文發現當國際石油價格上漲時，美國公司傾向將其公司名稱加入「石油」或「原油」等相關之文字且其股價報酬上升，企業價值增加。然而，當美國次級房貸風暴時期，投資人深恐石油產業將受美國次級房貸危機影響，因此變更公司名稱之公司其股價下跌。另外，本文發現由於近年來加拿大為世界主要石油輸出國之一，投資人對石油產業公司的了解度較佳，因此美國與加拿大公司更名對企業股價有不同的影響。 過去文獻主要以股東角度探討公司更名議題，本文第二篇文章主要從銀行貸款者的角度來探討公司更名的影響。本文認為公司更名提高貸款者與借款者之間的資訊不對稱，增加銀行貸款者評估借款者未來還款能力的不確定性。為了要降低不確定性帶來的財務風險，銀行貸款者傾向提高借款利息或增加要求抵押擔保品。本文發現在公司更名後，公司須負擔較高的借款成本、較多的抵押品擔保與合約限制。此外，公司更名後，願意加入聯合貸款的銀行數目降低。 這些實證結果支持本文的推論。在股票市場上，公司變更公司名稱對企業價值有顯著地影響，管理階層藉由變更公司名稱影響投資人對其的看法(investor sentiment)，進而提高股票價值。然而，在借貸市場上，公司變更名稱提高公司與貸款者間之資訊不對稱，公司更名須償付較高的借款成本和較多的抵押品擔保。本文的實證結果說明金融機構對公司治理具有監督和管理的重要角色。 / Two essays are comprised in this dissertation to examine the benefits and costs of corporate name changes. The empirical investigation on corporate name changes in stock market and loan market provide the entirely different insights on the effect of corporate name changes. With the recent oil price in surge and then crash, I have the opportunity to examine whether firms have the incentives to changes their names when oil price surge. In the first essay, I examine the wealth effect of corporate name changes involving oil-related terms. Following Cooper, Dimitrov and Rau (2001) and Cooper et al. (2005), I argue that firms tend to change their name by adding the words “oil” or “petroleum” to names when oil price in surge, while deleting the words “oil” or “petroleum” to names when oil price in a crash. I also compare the effect of corporate name changes between U.S. and Canadian stock market. Consistent with the prediction, I provide the evidence that there exists valuation effect of corporate name changes involving oil-related terms in U.S. stock market when the recent oil price surge. When financial crisis exploded U.S. stock market reacts significant negatively to corporate name changes. This is perhaps because investors expect economic difficulty caused by the financial crisis, which in turn, would hurt the oil industry and high oil price is not expected to be sustainable. On the contrary, relative to U.S. market, Canadian stock market has little reaction on the corporate name changes regardless of the type of name changes or market condition. This opposite results can be attributed to the different economic structure between U.S. and Canadian market. In the second essay, I focus on the effect of corporate name changes from the perspective of bank loan holders. I examine the cost of corporate name changes in the loan contracting. A corporate name changes creates information asymmetry and uncertainty about the future cash flow of a firms. To reduce the increase of credit risk, bank loan holders would attempt to enhance the efficient monitoring by tighter contracting terms and more concentrated lending structure. Consistent with this argument, the empirical results show that loan after name changes have significantly higher loan spread, higher probability of being secured, more general covenant restrictions and fewer lenders participate in a syndicated loan. Following Wu (2010), I categorize corporate name changes into different types of name changes and examine whether there is different effect among different types of name changes. I find that firms experiencing radical name changes are more likely to bear more financing costs. Lastly, I provide the evidence that firms pay higher borrowing costs when investors experience a significantly positive reaction from stock market through cosmetic name changes, which illustrate the importance of banks playing the role of monitoring and controlling borrowers.

本文以1999年至2006年間台灣改名公司為樣本(控制組)，並以與改名公司相同產業、相同規模之非改名公司作配對樣本(對照組)，透過兩者之比較以探討企業更名前後分析師行為之差異。本研究旨在檢驗改名事件日之前後60天(樣本期間為120天)，分析師之盈餘預測、盈餘成長率預測及盈餘預測離散性之差異，另外也會對改名前後之分析師人數變動作檢測。為了探討樣本期間拉長而樣本數增加是否會影響檢測之情形，額外於第五章之敏感性分析作改名前後90天(樣本期間為180天)，改名對於分析師行為影響之研究。另外，為比較不同類型的改名方式或條件不同的改名公司其改名事件對於分析師行為之影響，本文將改名的樣本公司依不同標準分成以下三類：第一種分類以新名稱是否有當紅產業字眼的變化作區分，第二種分類依新舊名稱之改變是否明顯且易於分辨而作大改名與小改名之區分，第三種分類方式則依新名稱是否與公司本業相符合作區分。 研究結果發現，不論樣本期間為120天或180天，實證結果皆顯示，相對於非改名公司，分析師會向上修正改名公司之盈餘預測及盈餘成長率預測，惟120天之結果較180天更為顯著，推測可能原因為樣本期間拉長後，干擾預測變動的因素相對增加而使改名之影響減低。樣本期間120天之實證結果也顯示，若新名稱有當紅產業字眼者，則對事件日後分析師盈餘預測及盈餘成長率預測也有正向關係；屬於大改名者則對事件日後分析師盈餘預測有正向關係 / This paper investigates the impact of corporate name changes on analysts’ behavior around the time of their announcement by analyzing listed Taiwanese companies that changed their name over the period January 1999 to December 2006. To make further investigations, we conduct separate analysis of firms having certain popular industry related new names versus non-popular industry related new names; of firms having ‘major’ versus ‘minor’ name changes; of firms having good versus poor connection between business and new names. Generally, we find some evidence of a significant positive association between the corporate name change event and the change of analysts’ behavior. The empirical results show that in contrast to non name change firms, analysts will revise up EPS and EPS growth forecast for name change firms. The results also suggest that analysts tend to revise up EPS and EPS growth forecast for firms having certain popular industry related new names. Furthermore, we also find a positive association between major name changes and analysts’ EPS forecast.