ONE OF THE PRIMARY FUNCTIONS OF CAPITAL MARKETS is the efficient pricing of
real investment. As companies acquire and dispose of assets, economic efficiency
demands that the market appropriately capitalizes such transactions.
Yet, growing evidence identifies an important bias in the market’s capitalization
of corporate asset investment and disinvestment. The findings suggest
that corporate events associated with asset expansion (i.e., acquisitions, public
equity offerings, public debt offerings, and bank loan initiations) tend to be
followed by periods of abnormally low returns, whereas events associated with
asset contraction (i.e., spinoffs, share repurchases, debt prepayments, and dividend
initiations) tend to be followed by periods of abnormally high returns.1