Sandeep Dahiya

Georgetown University | GU · McDonough School of Business

Do banks worry about expropriation when an activist hedge fund targets their borrowers or are they reassured that their borrowers will perform better after such targeting? We study 1435 events during the 1996–2013 period in which an activist targeted a US corporation, to examine what happens to loan contract terms post-targeting. We present two new...

This paper asks whether dissent votes in uncontested director elections have consequences for directors. We show that contrary to popular belief based on prior studies, shareholder votes have power and result in negative consequences for directors. Directors facing dissent are more likely to depart boards, especially if they are not lead directors...

Why do some firms raise equity capital from a small number of “private” investors (e.g. Private Investment in Public Equities–PIPE), while other firms do so from a large number of small investors (e.g. Seasoned Equity Offering–SEO)? Recent studies list market timing, asymmetric information, and financial distress as the primary motives that drive t...

The U.S. Bankruptcy Code provides enhanced priority and security features to debtor-in-possession (DIP) loans which can be obtained from a lender with whom the borrower may have no past lending relationship. The enhanced priority of DIP financing, and the choice of a DIP lender, significantly impact the investment decisions made by the firm. We sho...

The U.S. Bankruptcy Code provides enhanced priority and security features to debtor-in-possession (DIP) loans which can be obtained from a lender with whom the borrower may have no past lending relationship. The enhanced priority of DIP financing, and the choice of a DIP lender, significantly impact the investment decisions made by the firm. We sho...

We classify and test different empirical measures of firm opacity and document multiple theoretical and empirical inconsistencies across these proxies by testing the relative opacity of banks versus non-banks. We evaluate the effectiveness of these proxies by observing the effect of two cleanly identified shocks to firm-specific information, credit...

The last decade has witnessed a remarkable rise in the level of outsourcing/offshoring of operational activities by US corporations. However, the value implication of such decisions has not been examined in detail. Existing studies of outsourcing have either focused on a specific industry (e.g. Information Technology) or have been limited to short...

In the U.S., votes in director elections are advisory but are often used by shareholders to express dissent. We examine whether these non-binding votes have consequences for directors and report affirmative evidence. Directors facing dissent are more likely to depart boards, especially if they are not lead directors or chairs of important committee...

Venture capitalists deliver investments to entrepreneurs in stages. This paper shows staged financing is efficient. Staging lets investors abandon ventures with low early returns, and thus sorts good projects from bad. The primary implication from staging is that it is efficient to invest more in later rounds. The model yields a number of empirical...

Greater (Lesser) shareholder rights are likely associated with higher risk-shifting incentives, which in turn requires more (less) intensive monitoring by the lenders. We hypothesize that as shareholder rights are reduced, the need to form more concentrated (i.e. monitoring intensive) syndicates would be reduced as well. We use the passage of secon...

Given the central role of firm opacity in most finance theories, empirical proxies that identify firm opacity correctly should allow for more powerful tests of these theories. The last decade has seen adoption of several different empirical proxies that aim to capture firm opacity. However, there is no study that has compared all of these measures....

Greater (Lesser) shareholder rights are likely associated with higher risk-shifting incentives, which in turn requires more (less) intensive monitoring by the lenders. We hypothesize that as shareholder rights are reduced, the need to form more concentrated (i.e. monitoring intensive) syndicates would be reduced as well. We use the passage of secon...

We find that repeated borrowing from the same lender translates into a 10-17 bps lowering of loan spreads and that relationships are especially valuable when borrower transparency is low. These results hold using multiple approaches (propensity score matching, instrumental variables, and treatment effects model) that control for the endogeneity of...

We find that repeated borrowing from the same lender translates into a 10--17 bps lowering of loan spreads and that relationships are especially valuable when borrower transparency is low. These results hold using multiple approaches (propensity score matching, instrumental variables, and treatment effects model) that control for the endogeneity of...

While many empirical studies document borrower benefits of lending relationships, less is known about lender benefits. A relationship lender's informational advantage over a non-relationship lender may generate a higher probability of selling information-sensitive products to its borrowers. Our results show that the probability of a relationship le...

How capital structure, dividend policy, and corporate governance vary across countries has been the focus of recent studies, but how resources are reallocated in response to poor performance has not received as much attention. This paper argues that the market for corporate control and the formal bankruptcy/liquidation processes of a country are tw...

What motivates investors to hold American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) rather than the underlying stock of US listed foreign firms? We analyze the investment allocation decision of actively-managed emerging market mutual fund managers. Although legal provisions are typically assumed to affect ADR and its underlying domestic shares equally, investors...

While existing literature has documented the benefits of relationship banking for small privately held businesses, there is little empirical work that examines whether lending relationships provide significant (if any) benefits to larger borrowers. Our paper addresses this question. Unlike earlier studies we analyze the effects of borrowing from re...

Company stock option plans have diverse “sunset” policies for modifying terms of options held by managers who exit the firm. In our S&P 500 sample, these forfeiture, vesting, and expiration provisions are less generous in companies characterized by fast growth, dependence on skilled human capital, and high strategic interaction with competitors. Wh...

The recent merger of the New York Stock Exchange with Archipelago, a publicly listed electronic exchange, can be viewed as the final phase of a wave of organizational transformation that has swept across most of the world's major financial exchanges in the last ten years. Until the early 1990s, almost all stock and derivatives exchanges were organi...

The recent merger of the New York Stock Exchange with Archipelago, a publicly listed electronic exchange, can be viewed as the final phase of a wave of organizational transformation that has swept across most of the world's major financial exchanges in the last ten years. Until the early 1990s, almost all stock and derivatives exchanges were organi...

For a foreign"issuer,"the benefits of cross-listing in the United States are extensively documented in the literature. However it is not clear what motivates"investors"to hold American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) rather than the underlying stock of these issuers. The authors address the investors'choice to purchase local shares versus investing in A...

We examine value creation and destruction in the tobacco industry due to the radical litigation strategy of Brooke Group CEO Bennett LeBow. Brooke Group had tiny market share, low margins, high leverage and highly concentrated management ownership. Beginning in 1996, the firm reached settlements in lawsuits brought against all cigarette companies b...

This article examines the information content of the sale announcement of a borrower's loans by its lending bank. We find significant negative stock returns for the borrower on the loan sale announcement, particularly for subpar loan sales, where the bank's information advantage is greatest. Further, a large proportion of these borrowers file for b...

We use a unique data set of bank loans to examine the wealth effects on lead lending banks when their borrowers suffer financial distress. We find a significant negative announcement return for the lead lending bank when a major corporate borrower announces default or bankruptcy. Banks with higher exposure to the distressed firm have larger negativ...

Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) financing is a unique form of enhanced secured financing that is granted to firms filing for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. Opponents of DIP financing argue that such financing can lead to overinvestment, i.e., excessive investment in risky, (even negative NPV) projects. Alternatively, DIP fina...

This paper examines the risks and returns of Brady bonds for the period 1990–1995 in a Modern Portfolio Theory framework. We find: (1) that the realized returns of Brady bonds are lower than the realized returns of other asset classes such as US stocks or US bonds; and (2) Brady bonds exhibit higher volatility compared to the other asset classes. T...

One of the most important risks faced by a bank is that of loan default by its borrowers. Existing literature has documented the negative announcement-period returns for lending banks when a big sovereign borrower announces a moratorium on its bank loans. In contrast, little research has been undertaken that analyzes bank shareholder wealth effects...

The Internet is expected to play a significant role in the capital-raising process. Internet investment banks like Wit Capital and WR Hambrecht are supposed to make the IPO process more equitable by giving retail investors access to deals and pricing deals more accurately, thereby leaving less “money on the table” and lowering the cost of going pub...

Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) financing is a unique form of financing that is allowed to firms filing under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. The legal provisions confer enhanced seniority on this financing. It is argued that such financing leads to excessive investment in risky, (even negative NPV) projects. Defenders of DIP financing, on the oth...

We examine value creation and destruction in the tobacco industry due to the radical litigation strategy pursued by Brooke Group and its CEO, Bennett LeBow. Brooke Group has a tiny market share, low margins, high leverage, and a high concentration of management ownership.Beginning in 1996 the firm reached settlements in lawsuits brought against all...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Business Administration, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-101).