Are there any abnormal changes in the parent company's share price at the news of a spin‐off.
The main purpose of the study is to investigate how the news of a spin-off affects the parent company's share price. In other words if the news of the Spin-off gives an abnormal return on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the specific period of 1998‐2008. In addressing this, the paper will also investigate the following sub sections: are there any differences in the abnormal returns in various sectors and what the reasons to perform a spin‐off in the Swedish market are.
An event study in which market data is used to measure specific events’ impact on the value of the company and on the effects on the stock market. Secondary data used were taken from the OMX Nordic Exchange database and from SIXTRUST. The total population chosen for this study consists of 33 companies and the event window extends over 11 days: five days before, the day of the news and five days after.
The results of the study show that there are differences in how the share price reacts in different sectors at the news spin‐off. The highest CAAR in the event window for the total number of spin‐offs examined in the study amounted to 2.76%.