فروش دارایی، مبادلات دارایی و ثروت سهامداران در چین

In this paper, we study a sample of 1376 corporate asset sales and 250 asset exchanges in China between 1998 and 2006. We find that corporate asset sales in China enhance firm value with a cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of 0.46% for the pre-announcement five-day period, which is consistent with the evidence discovered in both U.K. and U.S. For companies that exchanged assets during the sample period, the pre-announcement five-day CAR of 1.32% is statistically significant. We also discover that gains from divesting assets are positively related to managerial performance measured by Tobin's q ratio and the relative size of the asset sold or exchanged. Well-managed (high-q) companies are more likely to sell or exchange assets in a value-maximizing fashion than poorly managed (low-q) companies. Furthermore, asset-seller gains are not related to enhancing corporate focus, but improving corporate focus by exchanging for core assets enhances firm value.

The market for corporate control has been extensively researched during the past four decades. For example, Jensen and Ruback (1983), and Jarrell et al. (1988) review much of the scientific literature on changes in corporate control through mergers, takeovers, acquisitions, divestitures, and the like, during the 1970s and 1980s. Mulherin and Boone (2000) further study the causes and effects of acquisitions and divestitures during the 1990s. Many studies including the aforementioned have confirmed that these control transactions generally maximize shareholders’ value. Broadly speaking, corporate divestiture refers to the reduction of assets through sell-offs, equity carve-outs, and spinoffs. There is abundant research examining the announcement effects of these three divesting activities on shareholder wealth in developed economies. For instance, Alexander et al. (1984), Jain (1985), and Hite et al. (1987) document that asset-sale announcements generate significant positive returns for selling firms in the U.S. John and Ofek (1995) identify increasing corporate focus as the source of asset-sale gain. Similarly, Kaiser and Stouraitis (1995) and Clubb and Stouraitis (2002) provide a European evidence on positive stock price reactions during initial announcements of subsidiary sell-offs. Hite and Owers (1983), Miles and Rosenfeld (1983), Schipper and Smith (1983), Slovin et al. (1995), and Mulherin and Boone (2000) all report that U.S. spin-off announcements are associated with strongly significant abnormal returns. Murray (2000), Janssens de Vroom and Van Frederikslust (2000), and Veld and Veld-Merkoulova (2004) find similar results for U.K. and European spin-offs. Regarding equity carve-outs, Schipper and Smith (1986) show that announcements of equity carve-outs produce positive stock returns for parent firms, but Slovin et al. (1995) find significantly negative share price effects on rivals of subsidiaries to be carved-out by a parent firm. Other studies document that the positive wealth effects for parents associated with equity carve-out announcements are due to paying out the proceeds than if retaining them (Allen and McConnell, 1998) and due to synergistic gains (Mulherin and Boone, 2000). As global markets are now more integrated than before, both the issue of corporate governance and the market of corporate control are expeditiously spread from developed markets to emerging markets. The purpose of this paper is to examine the wealth effects of two corporate restructuring activities, asset sales and asset exchanges, in China. Since 1980, China has launched a number of schemes to reform its economic systems, especially regarding state-owned enterprises (SOEs hereafter). The privatization programs during the 1990s were designed to create a modern enterprise system based on the Company Law, which defines an SOE's property right to dispose of its asset, including the equity of the state, and the state's limited responsibility to its shareholders in proportion to its capital contribution (Xu, 2000). By the end of March 2011, the combined market capitalization of China's Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses had not only risen more than tenfold in the past six years to USD 4.2 trillion but also surpassed the Tokyo Stock Exchange which stood at USD 3.6 trillion (KMPG, 2011). Table 1 shows that more than 2000 companies were listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges at the end of 2010. As China continues to restructure its economy, not only have mergers and acquisitions evolved rapidly in recent years in both style and substance, corporate restructuring activities have also followed suit.

Using a sample of 1376 asset sales and 250 asset exchanges in China between 1998 and 2006, this study first examines whether asset-sale and asset-exchange announcements generate any stock price reaction and subsequently explores the sources of the likely wealth gains based on several divestitures gain hypotheses. This paper first finds evidence that there are significantly positive stock price reactions during asset-sale announcements, which is consistent with the evidence found in U.K. and U.S. When companies exchanged assets, their average daily pre-announcement abnormal returns are all positive and statistically significant. The wealth gains from asset exchanges are bigger than those from asset sales. The cross-sectional regression results also document that shareholder gains are positively related to the divesting company's managerial performance and the relative size of the asset sold or exchanged. It is perceived that divesting firms with superior managerial performance experience a larger value creation when divesting assets. Furthermore, asset-seller gains are not related to enhancing corporate focus, but companies that exchanged for core assets to sharpen focus gain 1.13% in CAR, which is significant at the 1% level, more than that of companies that exchanged for non-core assets.