Markus Lithell defends his thesis September 20

On Wednesday September 20, 2023, Markus Lithell will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.

This dissertation consists of three essays in empirical corporate finance, covering partly overlapping topics on how firms fund their investments and the implications this choice has.

The first paper looks at mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and whether bidders pay less for targets that that are unlisted (i.e., do not trade on a stock exchange) than listed by introducing a novel target type: Firms with equity traded over the counter (OTC).

the impact of banking crises and natural disasters on households

On Tuesday 29 August 2023 Alessandro Pizzigolotto will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.

The paper finds that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, acquirers pay more for OTC targets and that these high premiums originate from shared synergy gains rather than bidder overpayment. The results are consistent with improvements to OTC targets’ access to capital.

The second paper (coauthored with Espen Eckbo) looks at aggregate M&A activity around the world and how it affects the flow of firms onto and within stock exchanges. Since the late 1990s, the number of listed companies on US stock exchanges has declined dramatically. The authors construct a new method that adjusts the listing count to better represent the impact of merger activity on which firms are de facto publicly owned.

They find that the composition of US stock exchanges has changed far less since the listing peak than suggested by the unadjusted listing count.

The third paper (coauthored with Matteo Pirovano, Davide Sinno, and Trang Vu) looks at a new mechanism for raising capital: securities crowdfunding. The authors investigate firms’ choice between issuing crowdfunded debt and equity and how this decision relates to their stage in the financial growth cycle. They find that firms that are in an earlier developmental stage are more likely to issue equity. They also find evidence suggesting that crowdfunding can alleviate capital constraints and stimulate growth for early-stage startups but has a negligible impact on established firms that are already profitable.