earticle

영어

This study examines how block share acquisitions of foreign investors affect stock returns of domestic target firms in Korea, focusing on the information asymmetry between target firms and foreign acquirers and the shareholder right protection in foreign acquirers’ home countries. There are at least two important reasons that using Korean data of block share acquisitions by foreign investors benefits the literature. First, Korean firms are well known to have poor governance systems and it is thus questionable whether foreign investors can improve firm value by monitoring as an outside blockholder when the investor protection is relatively low and whether geographic and cultural proximity of foreign investors can reduce information asymmetry with relatively low firm transparency in Korea. Second, investors are legally required to disclose their block holding intentions in Korea, which helps identify the effects of monitoring by blockholders on firms’ stock returns. Using 164 block share acquisitions in which foreign investors acquire at least 5% but less than 50% of a target firm’s stock shares from 1996 to 2016 as a sample, we find that stock returns of targets significantly increase when these block acquisitions are announced. To measure the information asymmetry foreign investors face in Korea, we use both geographic and cultural distances between foreign investors’ home countries and Korea and show that the positive stock market reactions to block acquisitions by foreign investors are more pronounced when the foreign block acquirers are geographically or culturally proximate to the host country. Moreover, we show that the value-increasing effects of geographic and cultural proximity of foreign investors on target stock returns are more evident when the foreign acquirers disclose their intentions to intervene in the management of target firms, suggesting that anticipated monitoring by foreign blockholders is an important determinant of the observed market reactions to their block share acquisitions. We also investigate how the extent of shareholder right protection in the home country of foreign acquirers influences the announcement returns of block acquisitions, using as a measure the difference in the shareholder rights scores between foreign acquirers’ home countries and Korea. We find positive stock price reactions to block acquisitions by foreign investors from countries with strong shareholder rights when they announce their monitoring incentives by stock market disclosures. In addition, we investigate whether the above findings vary according to the firm-specific information asymmetry measures such as a target firm’s size, age, tangibility, and R&D intensity, whether a target is listed in the KOSDAQ market, and whether it has credit ratings and the firm-specific governance measures such as its free cash flow and board size. We show that the value-enhancing effects of block acquisitions by foreign acquirers from geographically and culturally proximate countries and countries with strong shareholder rights are particularly evident when the firms targeted by foreign acquirers are likely to have higher information asymmetry and poorer governance systems according to the above-listed measures. Our results suggest that the stock market favorably responds to block share acquisitions by foreign investors anticipating their effective roles of monitoring target firms and firm value improvement facilitated by the active monitoring. Our results also indicate that these value increases by expected monitoring by foreign acquirers are more evident when the concerns on the information asymmetry between investors and targets are lower, when foreign acquirers are likely to have higher standards for the rights of shareholders, and when active monitoring is more likely to improve corporate governance and firm value. Our study contributes to the related literature in the following ways. First, our research confirms that considering heterogeneity among foreign investors is important in examining the impact of foreign investors on firms in the host country. We show that the heterogeneity in information accessibility of foreign investors due to their geographic and cultural proximities and in the shareholder rights protection in their home country matters in market valuation of their monitoring, in addition to the heterogeneity in shareholder activism in their home country (Kim, Sung, and Wei, 2017). Second, we supplement prior studies that investigate how information asymmetry between the host country and the home country of foreign investors and shareholder rights in their home country affect their governance activities and firm value (Kang and Kim, 2010), by exploiting the system of block holding disclosures in Korea and firm-specific measures of information asymmetry and corporate governance. Specifically, our findings suggest that the stock value increase in block acquisitions by foreign investors is attributable to the monitoring intentions of foreign investors with effective information accessibility and strong governance incentives, especially in firms with higher information asymmetry and poorer governance.

한국어

본 논문은 외국인 투자자의 국내기업 대규모 지분 인수가 대상 기업의 주가에 미치는 영향을 투자자와 기업 간 정보 비대칭과 투자자 소속 국가의 주주 권한 보호에 초점을 맞추어 분석했다. 1996년부터 2016년까지 발생했던 164건의 외국인 투자자 대규모 지분 인수를 분석한 결과, 지분 인수 공시 기간에 피인수기업의 주가가 유의하게 상승함을 발견했다. 이러한 주가 상승은 외국인 투자자와 투자 대상 기업 사이의 지리적 거리와 문화적 거리가 가까울수록 두드러지게 발생했으며, 특히 경영 참여를 목적으로 한 외국인 투자자 지분 인수 시 지리적, 문화적 근접성의 영향이 뚜렷했다. 또한 외국인 투자자가 속한 국가의 주주권리 보호 정도가 강하고 지분 인수가 경영 참여를 목적으로 한 경우에 긍정적인 공시효과가 발생했다. 이러한 결과는 기업의 정보비대칭이 상대적으로 높고 지배구조가 취약할 것으로 추정될 때 더욱 뚜렷한 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 실증 결과는 외국인 투자자의 대규모 지분 인수 시 기업 감시 활성화와 기업가치 상승에 대한 기대가 반영되어 피인수기업의 주가가 상승하며, 특히 외국인 투자자와 기업 간 정보 비대칭의 우려가 적고 투자자의 주주권한에 대한 인식이 높으며 기업의 정보 비대칭 수준이 높거나 지배구조가 상대적으로 취약하여 기업감시의 효과가 클 것으로 예상될수록 주가 상승이 뚜렷하게 나타남을 보여준다.