Corporate Spin-Offs and Capital Allocation Decisions

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Management Papers
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
corporate spin-offs
capital allocation
divestitures
diversification
corporate strategy
Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Feldman, Emilie R
Contributor
Abstract

This paper investigates how spin-offs affect capital allocation decisions in diversified firms. The sensitivity of capital expenditures to investment opportunities, representing the efficiency of capital allocation decisions, improves when firms undertake spin-offs. The improvement in the efficiency of capital allocation decisions is most pronounced immediately following the completion of spin-offs (though it attenuates thereafter) and in companies that operate in a moderate (as opposed to a high or a low) number of businesses pre-spin-off. Together, these findings uncover a novel benefit that is associated with spin-offs, an improvement in the process by which managers allocate capital in the divesting firms. These results also suggest that an important theoretical mechanism that may be driving this improvement is that spin-offs enable managers to devote more attention to the capital allocation process within their remaining businesses.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2016-12-01
Journal title
Strategy Science
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection