This thesis investigates three topics in empirical corporate finance. In the first essay, the focus is on the role of financial constraints in the market for corporate control. In the second and third essays, we explore the effect of personal connections at board and executive levels on corporate credit rating and initial public offering (IPO) underpricing respectively. In the first essay, using a large sample of US acquisitions made between 1985 and 2013, we study the effect of financial constraints on acquisition gains and acquisition likelihood. Our findings show that financial constraints of target companies significantly increase acquisition premiums and abnormal returns for both parties. Our results further show that the presence of financial constraints in the target is one of the most important determinants of a takeover bid. This supports the idea that acquisitions may improve the ability of financially constrained companies to access capital through a better reallocation of resources within segments of the same company (e.g., internal capital market) or through better access to external markets. This would eventually benefit bidders too, as new capital would be invested in valuable growth opportunities that otherwise would expire unexercised. In the second essay, using a large sample of US public debt issues we show that personal connections between directors of issuing companies and rating agencies result in higher credit ratings. We estimate the average effect to be about one notch. The results are robust to several alternative tests including additional controls for managerial traits, placebo tests and propensity score matching. Moreover, our tests on default rates and bond yields do not appear to reflect a favourable treatment by the rating agency. Rather, they suggest that personal connections act as a mechanism to reduce asymmetric information between the rating agency and the issuer. In the final essay, using a large sample of IPOs in the U.S. we show that interpersonal connections between directors and top executives in issuers and underwriting banks result in significantly lower levels of IPO underpricing. We also examine the issuers' long-term stock returns following their IPOs. Our results indicate that the connected companies' long-term returns are not significantly different from the non-connected companies. This suggests that underwriters set lower levels of underpricing for the connected companies not to treat them favourably, but due to better flow of and stronger reliance on soft information and lower risk exposure.

In the first essay titled "Divestitures and Acquisition Probability", I examine the relationship between a firm's divestiture activities and the likelihood that the firm will become an acquisition target. Using a logit model comparing a sample of target firms matched with a sample of non-target firms from 1986 to 2010, we find that a firm is 27 percent more likely to be acquired within three years of a divestiture activity than if there was no previous divestiture, and the effect is stronger for firms with fewer numbers of segments. Our finding is robust to modifications of control variables, to managerial entrenchment, as well as to alternative diagnoses. Consistent with the literature, we find the market reacts positively to a divestiture announcement. However, cross-sectionally we find the market reaction is positively related to whether or not the divesting firm adopts a golden parachute feature and negatively on the firm's number of segments which is related to the probability of future acquisition. In the second essay titled "The Choice of Divestiture and Long-run Performance: Asset Sell-off versus Equity Carve-out," I examine the post-divestiture long-run performance of two different choices of corporate divestiture, asset sell-offs versus equity carve-outs, and find that the choice of divestiture method has important implications for post-divestiture long-run performance. My findings show that the sell-off parents' long-run abnormal returns are significantly higher than those of the carve-out parents. I also find evidence that the long-term abnormal performance improves with a reduction in the diversification discount. The effect of the diversification discount is weaker for divesting parents with higher levels of R&D. My results further show that a firm's pre-divestiture number of segments and level of asymmetric information are positively related to the probability of an asset sell-off.

This doctoral thesis consists of three articles: one literature overview and two empirical articles. The first article provides a literature overview about industrial diversification, corporate acquisitions and the intersection of both research areas. This thesis secondly analyzes whether conglomerates invest externally differently from focused firms. This investigation provides new insights on the question how industrial diversification influences corporate investment. It allows to draw conclusions whether internal investment is independent from external investment in diversified firms, or whether weak internal investment in conglomerates is (at least partially) offset by more efficient external investment, or even whether value-destructive internal investment is accompanied by external investment eliciting the same effects. In this case weakly managed multi-segment firms could be also identified by their behavior and success in corporate acquisitions. Third, the thesis copes with the question how conglomerates are perceived and treated as potential targets of corporate acquisitions. This analysis adds further aspects to the question whether multi-segment firms are discounted due to their organizational form. Assuming that the sum of the single segment of a diversified company is higher valued than the conglomerate as a whole, one could expect that investors should strive to acquire such companies, to dismantle them subsequently in order to create additional value by reshaping these inefficiently composed entities. However, there are also contradicting effects of lower synergies and higher integration costs compared to the acquisition of stand alone firms. New insights in these discussions allow us to draw conclusions whether a diversification discount potentially being harvested by a bust up takeover outweighs lower synergies and higher integration costs.

This doctoral thesis consists of three articles: one literature overview and two empirical articles. The first article provides a literature overview about industrial diversification, corporate acquisitions and the intersection of both research areas. This thesis secondly analyzes whether conglomerates invest externally differently from focused firms. This investigation provides new insights on the question how industrial diversification influences corporate investment. It allows to draw conclusions whether internal investment is independent from external investment in diversified firms, or whether weak internal investment in conglomerates is (at least partially) offset by more efficient external investment, or even whether value-destructive internal investment is accompanied by external investment eliciting the same effects. In this case weakly managed multi-segment firms could be also identified by their behavior and success in corporate acquisitions. Third, the thesis copes with the question how conglomerates are perceived and treated as potential targets of corporate acquisitions. This analysis adds further aspects to the question whether multi-segment firms are discounted due to their organizational form. Assuming that the sum of the single segment of a diversified company is higher valued than the conglomerate as a whole, one could expect that investors should strive to acquire such companies, to dismantle them subsequently in order to create additional value by reshaping these inefficiently composed entities. However, there are also contradicting effects of lower synergies and higher integration costs compared to the acquisition of stand alone firms. New insights in these discussions allow us to draw conclusions whether a diversification discount potentially being harvested by a bust up takeover outweighs lower synergies and higher integration costs.:List of Tables … vi List of Figures … viii List of Abbreviations … ix List of Symbols … x Introduction … xiii I. Literature review … 1 1. Literature review about diversification and corporate transactions … 2 1.1. Introduction … 5 1.2. Impact of diversification … 7 1.2.1. Diversification and firm value … 8 1.2.2. Diversification and investment … 15 1.2.3. Diversification and further firm characteristics … 20 1.3. Corporate transactions … 29 1.3.1. Drivers of acquisitions … 29 1.3.2. Characteristics of acquisitions … 40 1.3.3. Impact of corporate transactions … 47 1.4. Intersection between diversification and transactions … 54 1.5. Conclusion … 56 II. Diversification and acquisitions … 74 2. Diversification and the likelihood of acquisitions … 75 2.1. Introduction … 78 2.2. Theoretical background … 81 2.2.1. Diversification and the likelihood of acquisitions … 81 2.2.2. Diversification and deal characteristics … 84 2.2.3. Diversification and deal performance … 86 2.3. Data and methodology … 87 2.4. Descriptive statistics … 91 2.5. Diversification and corporate transactions … 92 2.5.1. Diversification and transaction probability … 92 2.5.2. Diversification and deal characteristics … 95 2.5.3. Diversification and post-acquisition performance … 98 2.6. Conclusion … 100 III. Diversification and takeover likelihood … 109 3. Do acquirers of conglomerates benefit from the diversification discount? … 110 3.1. Introduction … 113 3.2. Theoretical background … 115 3.2.1. Corporate performance, diversification and takeover probability … 115 3.2.2. Entrenchment, diversification and takeover probability … 117 3.2.3. Synergies, integration costs and takeover probability … 119 3.2.4. Bid premiums and post-acquisition returns … 120 3.3. Data and methodology ... 123 3.4. Descriptive statistics … 127 3.4.1. Successful bids and diversification … 127 3.4.2. Bids and conglomerates: univariate analysis … 129 3.5. Diversification and the likelihood of being acquired … 130 3.6. Diversification and the bid premiums paid … 134 3.7. Diversification and the CAR of the acquirer … 138 3.8. Conclusion … 140