Description
The question of whether firms derive value from investment banking relationships has received considerable attention in the literature, especially since the increasingly competitive market forinvestment banking services would suggest that firms can switch investment banks costlessly.
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The Value of Investment Banking Relationships:
Evidence from the Collapse of Lehman Brothers
CHITRU S. FERNANDO, ANTHONY D. MAY, and WILLIAM L. MEGGINSON
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ABSTRACT
We examine the long-standing question of whether firms derive value from investment bank
relationships by studying how the Lehman collapse affected industrial firms that received
underwriting, advisory, analyst, and market-making services from Lehman. Equity underwriting
clients experienced an abnormal return of around -5%, on average, in the seven days surrounding
Lehman’s bankruptcy, amounting to $23 billion in aggregate risk-adjusted losses. Losses were
especially severe for companies that had stronger and broader security underwriting relationships
with Lehman or were smaller, younger, and more financially constrained. Other client groups
were not adversely affected.
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Fernando and Megginson are from the Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. May is from the
W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. We thank Jim Brau, Tim Burch, Agnes Chang, Jay
Choi, Jonathan Clarke, Arnie Cowan, Louis Ederington, Sadok El Ghoul, Joseph Fan, Mark Flannery, Veljko Fotak,
Xiaohui Gao, Vladimir Gatchev, Edith Ginglinger, Sridhar Gogineni, Radha Gopalan, Rob Hansen, Kate Holland,
Ravi Jagannathan, Tomas Jandik, Ed Kane, Bill Lane, Ji-Chai Lin, Laura Lindsey, Alexander Ljungqvist, Brian
Lucey, Joe Mason, Ron Masulis, Vikram Nanda, Kasper Nielsen, Rajesh Narayanan, Maureen O’Hara, Teodora
Paligorova, Adrian Pop, Manju Puri, Vikas Raman, Raghavendra Rau, Jay Ritter, Scott Smart, Duane Stock, Hugh
Thomas, Vahap Uysal, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, and seminar participants at the Chinese University of Hong Kong,
the 2010 FMA-Europe conference in Hamburg, the 2010 FMA-Asia conference in Singapore, the 2010 FMA
meeting (New York), the 2010 Financial Intermediation Research Society meeting (Florence), the 2010 INFINITI
conference (Dublin), Louisiana State University, the 2010 Oklahoma Finance Conference, the 2011 AFA meetings,
Université Paris Dauphine, the University of Hong Kong, and the University of Oklahoma for helpful discussions
and comments. We thank two referees, an associate editor, and the editor, Campbell Harvey, for suggestions that
significantly improved the paper. A part of this research was conducted when Chitru Fernando was visiting at the
SMU Cox School of Business and Bill Megginson was visiting at Université Paris-Dauphine (UPD) as a guest of the
Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF) Chair in Corporate Finance. We thank SMU and UPD for their gracious
hospitality and Mariusz Lysak for research assistance. We are responsible for any remaining errors.
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The question of whether firms derive value from investment banking relationships has received
considerable attention in the literature, especially since the increasingly competitive market for
investment banking services would suggest that firms can switch investment banks costlessly.
Extant research has failed to come up with an unambiguous answer, however, due in part to the
difficulty in measuring the value of relationship capital.
The sudden collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 14, 2008 (then the fifth largest
investment bank in the world) provides a unique natural experimental setting to measure the
value of the relationships that client firms had with Lehman. Whereas large U.S. financial
institutions in distress have almost invariably been prevented from declaring bankruptcy by
being acquired by other large institutions (often with the intervention of the U.S. government),
Lehman was explicitly allowed to fail.
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This unprecedented collapse was all the more shocking
since Barclays Bank had been negotiating an acquisition with Lehman’s managers right up to
Saturday, September 13, 2008, the day before Lehman announced the largest bankruptcy filing in
U.S. history. When stock market trading resumed on Monday, September 15, 2008, Lehman’s
stock lost virtually all its value, the U.S. stock market experienced one of its worst single-day
losses, and the entire global financial system was pushed to the edge of collapse.
The acquisition by an investment bank of valuable private information about a firm
(James (1992), Schenone (2004), and Drucker and Puri (2005)), investment bank monitoring
(Hansen and Torregrosa (1992)), investment by banks in institutional investor networks
(Benveniste and Spindt (1989), Cornelli and Goldreich (2001), Ritter and Welch (2002), and
Ljungqvist, Jenkinson, and Wilhelm (2003)), switching costs incurred by firms in moving to a
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new underwriter (Burch, Nanda, and Warther (2005) and Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2006)),
and optimal firm-underwriter matching (Fernando, Gatchev, and Spindt (2005)) would all
suggest that the relationship is jointly valuable to the firm and its underwriter. However, there is
no clear evidence on the extent to which client firms receive a share of any value created from
the relationship. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that client firms frequently switch
underwriters, especially to those of higher reputation (Krigman, Shaw, and Womack (2001) and
Fernando, Gatchev, and Spindt (2005)), which also raises questions about the extent to which
client firms share any value created by the relationship. Additionally, while investment banks
provide a variety of services in addition to underwriting equity and debt offerings, the extent to
which these services create value for clients from a long-term investment bank relationship is
also unknown.
We examine how the Lehman collapse affected industrial firms that received
underwriting, advisory, analyst, and market-making services from Lehman by studying how their
stock prices reacted on Monday, September 15 and over various short-term windows around that
day. We identify more than 800 public industrial companies that received one or more of these
five services from Lehman during the 10 years leading up to and including 2008, as well as a
comparable number (946) of firms that received equity underwriting services from Lehman’s
competitors. We address two specific research questions: First, did Lehman’s collapse impact its
investment banking (IB) clients over and above the impact the firm’s collapse had on the equity
market in general, and second, did the impact of Lehman’s failure vary with the type of IB
service received, client characteristics, and/or the strength of the client’s relationship with
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Lehman? These questions are central to understanding how intermediaries create value for their
clients. To our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to isolate the value of the
investment bank relationship to clients using a broad group of client firms and all major
investment banking services.
Companies that had used Lehman as lead underwriter for one or more equity offerings
during the 10 years leading up to September 2008 suffered economically and statistically
significant negative abnormal returns. Based on Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model adjusted
abnormal returns, the 184 equity underwriting clients that we study lost 4.85% of their market
value, on average, over a seven-day period spanning the five trading days prior to and the first
and second trading days immediately following Lehman’s bankruptcy filing, amounting to
approximately $23 billion in aggregate risk-adjusted losses. We arrive at similar value loss
estimates and conclusions using alternative return generating models. These losses were
significantly larger than those for firms that were equity underwriting clients of other large
investment banks, and were especially severe for companies that had stronger and broader
underwriting relationships with Lehman, including equity clients that also engaged Lehman for
debt and convertible debt underwriting. Losses were also higher for smaller, younger, and more
financially constrained firms. No other client groups were significantly adversely affected by
Lehman’s bankruptcy.
These results show that Lehman’s collapse did, in fact, impose material losses on its
customers, but for the most part these losses were confined to those companies that employed
Lehman for equity underwriting. Furthermore, to the extent that investors partially anticipated
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Lehman’s failure prior to the days surrounding Lehman’s bankruptcy announcement, these
estimates may actually understate the losses suffered by Lehman’s equity underwriting clients.
More broadly, these results tell us that underwriting is the principal portion of the overall
investment banking relationship that is irreplaceable without significant cost and whose value
will be forfeited if the relationship were to be involuntarily ruptured.
The rest of our paper is organized as follows. In Section I we briefly review the existing
literature on firm-intermediary relationships in corporate finance and formulate our empirical
hypotheses. Section II describes our data and methodology. Section III presents our findings on
the impact of the Lehman collapse. Section IV concludes.
I. Background
We organize our discussion by first reviewing the literature on investment banking
relationships and then discussing the empirical implications pertaining to the value of investment
banking relationships to clients.
A. Firm-Investment Bank Relationships
The extant theoretical and empirical literature has examined ways in which a long-term
equity underwriting relationship between an investment bank and a client firm can create value
for both parties. The first such channel is economies of scale. James (1992) and Burch, Nanda,
and Warther (2005) show that set-up costs in the IPO due diligence process create durable
relationship capital that lowers underwriting spreads for firms that are expected to issue equity
again, and Kovner (2010) provides evidence of valuable relationship capital being created for
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IPO clients. Equity underwriters also create significant value for their clients by monitoring
(Hansen and Torregrosa (1992)) and by investing in the development and maintenance of
institutional investor networks that serve as channels not only for collecting information but also
for the distribution of shares through book building, thereby reducing the indirect costs of equity
offerings.
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Finally, the presence of switching costs also suggests that an underwriting
relationship will be valuable due to the cost of rupturing it to establish a new equity underwriting
relationship (Burch, Nanda, and Warther (2005) and Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2006)).
However, these studies do not account for the added benefit that firms may receive by employing
a higher quality underwriter. Krigman, Shaw, and Womack (2001) and Fernando, Gatchev, and
Spindt (2005) show that seasoned firms often voluntarily switch from lower to higher quality
underwriters, which suggests that the benefits of establishing a new underwriting relationship
may sometimes outweigh the costs.
Burch, Nanda, and Warther (2005) argue that firms derive less value from a debt
underwriting relationship based on their finding that in contrast to repeat equity issuers, which
benefit from significantly reduced underwriting fees for subsequent offerings, debt issuers are
actually penalized (charged higher underwriting fees) for retaining the previous underwriter for
subsequent bond offerings. While several studies, including Rajan (1992), Boot and Thakor
(2000), Schenone (2004), Yasuda (2005), and Bharath et al. (2007), argue that an existing
lending relationship between a bank and borrowing firm can be mutually beneficial, it is
unknown whether these findings carry over to debt underwriting, although some of these studies
also document economies of scope between lending and underwriting.
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Additionally, in contrast
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to equity offerings, debt ratings by rating agencies make underwriter debt certification and
placement less valuable to clients.
Studies that examine the relationship between acquiring firms and the investment banks
that advise them generally show that banks do provide valuable advisory services to acquirers
involved in takeover contests, and that employing more prestigious banks is associated with
superior outcomes for clients.
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However, these studies also generally find that banks advising
clients on acquisitions face conflicts of interest between their desire to provide unbiased advice
and their desire to consummate deals in order to collect completion payments. Additionally,
there is no evidence that client acquirer firms derive persistent value from such a relationship or
that any relationship is not transferable to another investment bank without a significant cost to
the client. Much of the private information collected during the M&A process pertains to the
target firm and this information loses value immediately after a deal is consummated.
The investment banking literature indicates that security analysts employed by
prestigious banks can provide valuable services to client firms, as shown by Mikhail, Walther,
and Willis (2004) and Ivkovi? and Jegadeesh (2004). However, it is less clear whether that
relationship is firm-specific (between client firm and bank) or person-specific (between client
firm and analyst). The available evidence suggests that any value in an existing analyst
relationship will simply be transferred costlessly to a new bank that employs the analyst after the
original bank’s failure (Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm (2006) and Clarke et al. (2007)).
Finally, while several studies examine the value of market making for NYSE listed
firms,
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the value of any market making provided by underwriters appears to be short-lived,
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helping to stabilize an offering in the immediate aftermath of an IPO but progressively becoming
less important over the ensuing months. Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2000) show that the
underwriter is almost always the dominant dealer in the three month period after a NASDAQ
IPO and that the underwriter engages in price stabilization during this period. Schultz and Zaman
(1994), Aggarwal (2000), and Corwin, Harris, and Lipson (2004) also show that the underwriter
engages in price stabilization just after the IPO.
B. Empirical Implications
Equity underwriting relationships (especially relationships with high reputation
underwriters) appear to be potentially valuable to client firms due to equity clients (i) being able
to share the benefit of an underwriter’s investment in information generation via reduced fees for
subsequent equity offerings; and (ii) having the ability to benefit from underwriter monitoring
and the underwriter’s investment in a network of institutional investors, who provide information
and also subscribe to the underwriter’s offerings. If so, the rupture of an existing equity
underwriting relationship could potentially be highly damaging for client firms, especially for
those relatively small and lesser known companies that rely heavily on their current underwriters
to access public stock markets and are unable to easily migrate to other underwriters.
Additionally, even if some companies are able to swiftly enlist new underwriters, this will
involve significant switching costs and any relationship-specific capital embodied in the prior
relationship will be forfeited. However, in an environment where a free market exists for
underwriter services and underwriter switching is common, the questions of what value client
firms obtain by staying in an underwriting relationship and what the sources of this value are, if
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any, remain unresolved. The question of how this value might be affected by the emergence of
co-led underwriting (Shivdasani and Song (2010)) has also not been examined.
Debt underwriting relationships appear to be less valuable to client firms than equity
underwriting relationships. While debt offerings also entail information generation, there is no
evidence in the literature to suggest that client firms are able to share in the benefit of an
underwriter’s investment in information when it comes to subsequent offerings. Additionally,
since many debt securities have credit ratings, they are easier to price and place, making
underwriter certification and the book building process considerably less valuable to client firms.
Therefore, to the extent that Lehman debt underwriting relationships are valuable to clients, we
expect this value to be less than that for equity underwriting relationships.
While M&A advisory relationships involve intense information gathering prior to a deal,
there is no evidence to suggest that client acquirer firms derive persistent value from such a
relationship or that any relationship is not easily transferable to another investment bank. Much
of the private information collected during the M&A process pertains to the target firm and this
information largely dissipates after a deal is consummated. Additionally, serial acquirers are
invariably larger and would have a relatively easier time in transferring to another investment
bank for M&A advisory services.
If analyst coverage relationships are analyst-specific rather than bank-specific as
suggested by Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm (2006) and Clarke et al. (2007), any value that is
embedded in the analyst-client relationship will simply be transferred to the analyst’s new
employers without diminishing the client firm’s market value. Finally, the value of any market
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making provided by underwriters is short-lived, helping to stabilize an offering in the immediate
aftermath of an IPO but progressively becoming less important over the ensuing months.
Therefore, it seems unlikely that client firms would derive value from a long-term market-
making relationship.
Conditional on a relationship developed through the provision of investment banking
services having value, we expect cross-sectional variation in client losses around Lehman’s
bankruptcy to be related to the strength of the relationship and client characteristics. For equity
underwriting, we conjecture that the number of past equity deals with Lehman and Lehman’s
share of the client’s past common stock offerings could capture the strength of the relationship.
Additionally, the commonality in information used by investment banks across all underwriting
services for the same firm (equity, convertible debt, and straight debt) would suggest the
presence of economies of scope. If equity underwriting clients that use other underwriting
services receive some of this benefit, we would expect to see it reflected in the abnormal return.
Furthermore, any client lending facilities that involve Lehman as lead or participant lender would
add to the strength of the relationship. Finally, to the extent that Lehman’s ownership of the
client’s shares is an indicator of a stronger relationship (Ljungqvist and Wilhelm (2003) and
Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm (2006)), a negative relation is implied between the client’s
abnormal returns and Lehman’s ownership of the client’s shares. Aside from this relationship-
based interpretation, Lehman’s failure may have also disproportionately affected clients in which
it owned shares due to a supply-side effect. If Lehman’s bankruptcy triggered the sale of its
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clients’ shares, either voluntarily or as a result of forced liquidation during the impending
bankruptcy process, then a more negative reaction among such firms should be observed.
Regarding client characteristics, we hypothesize that clients with greater immediate need
for external capital will be more adversely affected by the loss of an underwriting relationship.
Specifically, we expect firms with less financial slack and firms in greater financial distress to
have greater need for external capital and therefore we expect such firms to suffer greater losses
in response to Lehman’s bankruptcy. Finally, since smaller and younger firms generally have
less established reputations in financial markets, the information production role of an
intermediary is more important to them relative to larger, more established firms (Diamond
(1991)), and hence they should be more adversely affected by Lehman’s collapse.
II. Data and Methodology
A. Equity Underwriting
We use the Securities Data Corporation (SDC) Global New Issues database to identify
firms that employed Lehman Brothers as the lead or co-lead underwriter on a public offering of
common stock in the U.S. market during the 10 years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy
(September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008).
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We restrict the sample to U.S. firms in CRSP and
Compustat with publicly traded common stock (CRSP share codes of 10 or 11) at the time of the
bankruptcy announcement. We exclude utilities (two-digit SIC code 49) because their financing
decisions are highly regulated. The Lehman bankruptcy also triggered a wave of creditor claims,
overwhelmingly from other financial firms and arising largely from debt and OTC derivatives
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counterparty claims.
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Thus, we also exclude all financial (one-digit SIC code 6) firms from our
analyses to prevent this purely financial counterparty exposure from obscuring the impact of
Lehman’s bankruptcy on its corporate finance clients.
For our event study, we identify September 15, 2008 as Day 0 because it was the first day
on which the market could react to the bankruptcy announcement. For the purpose of estimating
abnormal stock returns during the event period, we use a 260-day estimation period (Day -290 to
Day -31), and we require that firms have nonmissing returns on at least 100 days during this
estimation period and nonmissing returns on all days during the period Day -5 to Day +5.
Imposing these restrictions yields an initial sample of 199 industrial (i.e., nonfinancial, non-
utility) firms that employed Lehman as a lead underwriter on at least one common stock offering
during the 10 years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy.
In addition to excluding financial firms, we also screen the industrial firms in our initial
sample for material derivatives and other financial exposure to Lehman. Since the SEC requires
a firm to file an 8-K report when an event triggers a material change in the firm’s financial
condition, we search the SEC’s EDGAR system for 8-K reports filed by all our sample firms
between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 that describe derivatives counterparty
relationships or exposure to securities issued by Lehman. We also search quarterly (10-Q) and
annual (10-K) reports filed between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 for disclosure of
derivatives counterparty relationships with Lehman. We identify and drop 15 firms from the
sample, yielding a final sample of 184 equity underwriting clients. As an added check, we verify
that our sample does not contain firms that had material claims against Lehman in the
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aforementioned bankruptcy case docket. We use this same screening procedure to eliminate
firms with material exposure to Lehman in all samples discussed in subsequent portions of the
paper. While our results are substantively unchanged regardless of whether we apply these
screens, the results we report pertain to these screened samples. Using SEC filings and Loan
Pricing Corporation’s (LPC) Dealscan database, we also identify 42 firms in our sample for
which Lehman was a lender in one or more of their credit facilities. In addition to verifying the
robustness of our findings when these firms are excluded from our analysis, we control for
lending relationships with Lehman in all our cross-sectional regressions.
Since Lehman’s collapse had an adverse impact on the investment banking industry and
may have signaled that it would be relatively more costly to issue equity in the near future, we
conjecture that the broader population of equity issuers may also have been abnormally affected
by Lehman’s collapse. We investigate this possibility by computing abnormal returns earned by
clients of similarly positioned investment banks around the time of Lehman’s bankruptcy. We
identify banks with industry status similar to that of Lehman using the two underwriter
reputation metrics commonly employed in the literature – underwriting market share (Megginson
and Weiss (1991)) and reputation ranking (Carter and Manaster (1990)).
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We first identify all
banks with an updated (2005 to 2007) Carter-Manaster ranking that is no more than one point
lower or one point higher than that of Lehman. We then pick the 10 underwriters from this pool
of banks that survive to September 14, 2008 and that are closest (according to difference in
percentage points) to Lehman in 2007 U.S. common stock underwriting market share. These 10
banks are Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citibank, UBS, Credit
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Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Wachovia. We identify firms that employed at
least one of these banks but did not employ Lehman as a lead underwriter in a public common
stock offering during the 10 years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy, yielding an initial sample of
963 firms. After searching these firms’ SEC filings following the procedure outlined above, we
eliminate 17 firms with material financial exposure to Lehman, leading to a final sample of 946
firms.
B. Debt Underwriting, M&A Advising, Market Making, and Analyst Coverage
In addition to equity underwriting, we also examine the effect of Lehman’s collapse on
firms that received other services from Lehman, including debt underwriting, M&A advising,
market making, and analyst coverage. We do so using samples that include all industrial firms
that receive the particular service of interest from Lehman, constructed using the same
restrictions regarding SIC codes and available CRSP/Compustat data as those used to construct
the sample of equity underwriting clients.
We identify an initial sample of 61 industrial firms that employed Lehman as an
underwriter in at least one public straight debt offering during the 10-year period prior to
Lehman’s bankruptcy. Screening for firms with material financial exposure to Lehman
eliminates eight companies, yielding a final sample of 53 firms. Next, we construct an initial
sample of 10 firms that used Lehman as an underwriter for at least one public convertible debt
offering during the sample period. After screening for firms with material financial exposure to
Lehman, the final sample of convertible debt underwriting clients consists of seven firms. As
with equity underwriting, these samples are restricted to offerings made in the U.S. market.
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We use the SDC Mergers and Acquisitions database to identify an initial sample of 94
acquiring firms that employed Lehman as a financial advisor in at least one completed
acquisition of a U.S. target during the 10 years prior to Lehman’s bankruptcy. Removing firms
with material financial exposure to Lehman reduces the final sample to 87 firms.
We use the NYSE’s Post and Panel File to identify 158 NYSE firms for whom Lehman
was the specialist at the time of the bankruptcy. This initial sample is reduced to 151 firms once
companies with material exposure to Lehman are removed.
We use the Thomson I/B/E/S Detail History database to identify companies that were
covered by an analyst from Lehman Brothers just prior to its bankruptcy.
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We define a firm as
receiving coverage if an analyst from Lehman made at least one earnings forecast in either the
firm’s current fiscal quarter or last fiscal quarter. The initial sample of 659 firms is reduced to
633 companies after screening for material exposure to Lehman.
C. Measures of Investment Bank-Client Relationship Strength and Client Characteristics
This subsection describes measures of the strength of a client’s relationship to Lehman
and other client characteristics that we use as independent variables in our cross-sectional
regressions pertaining to equity underwriting clients.
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We employ several measures of the
strength of Lehman’s investment banking relationships with equity underwriting clients. Our first
proxy for relationship strength is the total number of common stock offerings underwritten by
Lehman during our sample period. Since this variable does not capture the client’s reliance on
Lehman relative to other banks, we also employ the number of a client’s equity offerings
underwritten by Lehman divided by the total number of the client’s equity offerings over the
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prior 10 years as a measure of the client’s loyalty to Lehman in common stock deals, which we
call Lehman’s share of the client’s common stock offerings. Because our aim is to capture the
client’s degree of exclusivity or loyalty to Lehman relative to other banks, this variable is
constructed such that, for offerings with n lead underwriters, Lehman is credited with 1/n share
of that offering. This variable ranges between zero and one, with one indicating that the firm
dealt exclusively with Lehman in its equity offerings. Additionally, we employ an underwriting
relationship scope index as our third proxy for relationship strength, which would also reflect
any economies of scope in underwriting captured by the client. This variable receives one point
for each of the three underwriting services that a firm can receive (equity, straight debt, and
convertible debt) and therefore ranges from one to three for equity underwriting clients.
As noted previously, Ljungqvist and Wilhelm (2003) and Ljungqvist, Marston, and
Wilhelm (2006) conjecture that an investment bank holding an equity stake in the client may
serve as a means of “cementing” a relationship. Following Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm
(2006), we use the CDA/Spectrum database on institutional 13f holdings to identify clients in
which Lehman held common shares at the time of the bankruptcy. Since Lehman was a large
financial institution with multiple subsidiaries that could potentially own shares, we use
Lehman’s 10-K filing for fiscal year 2007 to identify subsidiaries of Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. (the ultimate parent company of all Lehman Brothers entities). We then search the SEC’s
EDGAR database for 13f filings by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) and its subsidiaries,
and find 13f filings by two Lehman Brothers entities: LBHI and Neuberger Berman LLC, part of
Lehman’s asset management arm.
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We construct two variables that measure the proportion of
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the client firm’s outstanding shares owned by LBHI and Neuberger Berman. We regress
abnormal returns on these two variables to determine whether clients with larger proportions of
shares owned by Lehman Brothers entities were more adversely affected by Lehman’s
collapse.
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Lehman Brothers acted as a lead lender or participant lender in many syndicated credit
facilities. We use facility-level data from LPC’s Dealscan database along with SEC filings to
identify firms in our sample that had credit facilities from Lehman at the time of the bankruptcy.
Among Lehman’s equity underwriting clients, 42 firms had active credit facilities in which
Lehman was a member of the lending syndicate. For 14 of these firms, Lehman was the lead
lender (administrative agent) in at least one of the firm’s facilities. In our cross-sectional
analyses, we use two dummy variables that control for Lehman’s role as lender. The first equals
one if Lehman was a lead lender in at least one of the firm’s facilities and zero otherwise. The
second equals one if Lehman was not a lead lender but was a participating lender in at least one
of the firm’s facilities and zero otherwise.
We expect firms with greater immediate need for external capital to be more adversely
affected by the failure of their equity underwriter. Since firms with greater financial slack should
have less immediate need for external financing, we use net market leverage and cash-to-assets
to test this hypothesis. Financially distressed firms should have greater need for external equity
capital and so we also use Altman’s (1968) Z-score. As additional determinants, we include firm
size and age. We expect larger and older firms to have more established reputations in financial
markets so that the information production role of an underwriter is less important to them.
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Finally, we include a dummy variable that takes the value of one if the client shelf
registered (Rule 415) an equity offering during the two years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy
and did not take any of the registered equity off the shelf before September 14, 2008, and zero
otherwise. This variable aims to capture firms that were likely to issue equity in the near future.
D. Estimating Abnormal Returns
We estimate daily abnormal stock returns using the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor
model, which includes the Fama and French (1993) factors and the Carhart (1997) momentum
factor:
, , , i t i i M t i t i t i t i t
R R s SMB h HML uUMD ? ? ? = + + + + +
,
(1)
where on Day t, R
i,t
is the return to firm i, R
M,t
is the return to the value-weighted CRSP market
index, and SMB
t
, HML
t
, and UMD
t
are the returns to the Small-Minus-Big (SMB), High-Minus-
Low (HML), and Up-Minus-Down (UMD) portfolios meant to capture size, book-to-market, and
return momentum effects, respectively.
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For each firm in the sample, we estimate the parameters
in the four-factor model over a 260-day pre-event period (Day -290 to Day -31). Daily abnormal
returns during the event period are calculated in the usual manner by subtracting the expected
return implied by the four-factor model from the firm’s realized return.
While most short-term event studies typically employ a simpler return generating model
such as the market model, we choose the four-factor model as our primary method due to the
unusual nature of the event in our study. Lehman’s collapse had a system-wide impact, as
evidenced by the fact that the market experienced a one-day return of nearly -5% on September
15. In addition, the SMB portfolio gained 1.4%, indicating that larger firms were more adversely
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affected than smaller firms, the HML portfolio lost over 2%, indicating that value stocks suffered
greater losses than growth stocks, and the UMD portfolio gained nearly 3%, indicating that past
losers were more adversely affected than past winners. The aim of our study is to isolate the
effect of Lehman’s collapse on Lehman clients after filtering out systematic effects. Since many
of our samples could be considered nonrandom, especially with respect to size or book-to-
market,
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we consider the four-factor model more robust than the market model because it
attempts to control for systematic size, value, and momentum effects, which were significant
during our event period. Using the four-factor model therefore reduces the likelihood that our
results may be influenced by anomalous factors, such as a small firm effect.
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Nonetheless, in
some of our analyses we also report abnormal returns estimated with the three-factor model of
Fama and French (1993), the market model, and two procedures that match each sample firm to a
nonsample firm according to (i) size and book-to-market ratio and (ii) industry and size. In these
matching procedures, the abnormal return is computed as the raw return of the sample firm
minus the raw return of the matched nonsample firm. For size and book-to-market matching,
matched firms are selected such that the sum of the absolute percentage differences between the
sizes (market value of equity) and book-to-market ratios of the sample firm and matched firm is
minimized. For industry and size matching, matches are selected such that the matched firm is in
the same Fama-French 49 industry, and the difference in market value of equity between the
sample firm and matched firm is minimized.
Because all firms in our analysis have the same event period in calendar time, some
degree of cross-sectional correlation in abnormal returns across firms is expected and
20
conventional test-statistics will be biased. We therefore test for statistical significance using the
test statistic proposed by Kolari and Pynnönen (2010), which is a modified version of the widely
used t-statistic of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen (BMP) (1991). Kolari and Pynnönen modify
the BMP t-statistic to account for contemporaneous correlation in abnormal returns across
sample firms. The modification is a multiplier applied to the standard error that is increasing with
the average correlation of abnormal returns across stocks in the sample. If correlations tend to be
positive on average (as they are in all our samples), the modification will result in a more
conservative (closer to zero) test statistic. This statistic is particularly applicable in our setting
because it is well specified when the variance of abnormal returns is higher during the event
period than in the estimation period and when abnormal returns are cross-sectionally correlated.
III. Results
A. The Collapse of Lehman Brothers
Table I documents the significant events surrounding the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers
and Lehman’s stock price performance. On Sunday evening, September 14, 2008, Lehman
announced that it would file for protection in U.S. bankruptcy court. The following day (Day 0),
Lehman’s shareholders experienced a raw return of -94%, which came on the heels of significant
losses during the week prior to the bankruptcy announcement (September 8 to September 12;
Days -5 to -1). During this period, Lehman announced a $3.9 billion loss and a dividend cut, the
major rating agencies put Lehman’s credit rating on “watch,” and a deal involving a potential
investment in Lehman by Korea Development Bank reportedly fell through. After Lehman filed
21
for bankruptcy, Barclays announced on September 16 that it had reached an agreement to
purchase Lehman’s North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, and the
following day Lehman was delisted from the NYSE.
**** Insert Table I about here ****
B. The Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity Underwriting Clients to Lehman’s
Bankruptcy
Table I also reports abnormal returns for Lehman’s equity underwriting clients using the
Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model. Client firms experienced a statistically significant mean
four-factor adjusted abnormal return of -1.48% (equally weighted) or -1.76% (value-weighted)
on Day 0.
16
In addition, Lehman’s equity underwriting clients earned a significant negative
abnormal return on the day the major rating agencies put Lehman’s credit rating on “watch” and
a deal involving a potential investment in Lehman by Korea Development Bank reportedly fell
through (Day -4). Over the seven-day period (-5,+1) that includes the week prior to the
bankruptcy announcement, Panel A of Table II shows that Lehman’s equity underwriting clients
experienced a sharp -4.85% cumulative abnormal return (CAR) that is highly significant both
economically and statistically. The mean (0,+1) CAR for this sample is also negative and
statistically significant. Panel A of Table II also reports mean CARs for clients of banks with
industry status similar to that of Lehman, using the four-factor model. Clients of Lehman’s
industry peers experienced a smaller (in magnitude) and statistically insignificant mean four-
factor adjusted abnormal return of -0.66% on Day 0. The -0.82% difference in mean abnormal
returns on Day 0 between Lehman clients and clients of similar banks is statistically significant,
22
indicating that Lehman’s bankruptcy had a relatively more adverse effect on Lehman clients. The
same conclusion obtains when the mean (-5,+1) CARs are compared across the two groups.
**** Insert Table II about here ****
Panels B and C of Table II report CARs estimated with the Fama and French (1993)
three-factor model and the market model, respectively. The results based on the Fama-French
three-factor model (Panel B) are consistent with those from the four-factor model. Regarding the
reaction of Lehman clients, results based on the market model (Panel C) are weaker than those
from the four-factor and three-factor models. The mean market model-adjusted abnormal return
on Day 0 for Lehman clients is -0.18%, which is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
However, the (-5,+1) mean CAR for Lehman clients of -4.26% is significant both economically
and statistically. In addition, the differences in mean market model CARs over the (0,0), (0,+1),
and (-5,+1) windows between Lehman clients and clients of similar banks are again significantly
negative, indicating that Lehman clients suffered significantly greater losses. In summary, the
evidence from the factor models and market model in Table II indicates strongly that Lehman’s
equity underwriting clients respond more negatively to the announcement of Lehman’s
bankruptcy than do clients of Lehman’s industry peers.
C. Robustness Checks
A potential concern with the factor and market model abnormal returns is that market
betas could have shifted up during the event period, which would render the abnormal returns we
document negatively biased. Thus, we carry out multiple tests to address the possibility that our
results may be affected by shifting market betas around the period of our study. We first conduct
23
tests of parameter stability as discussed in Binder (1985), Kane and Unal (1988), MacKinlay
(1997), and Coutts, Roberts, and Mills (1997) by modifying the market model to allow beta to
change during the event window, enabling an event study of whether systematic risk shifted. The
framework we use employs a continuous time series of daily returns and allows for beta to differ
over three different regimes corresponding to the (-290,-31) period (the estimation period used in
our baseline approach of estimating abnormal returns), the (-30,-6) period, and an event period
that runs from Day -5 to some post-event day. We try both short and long intervals for the event
period, where the ending dates range from two weeks (Day +10) to 10 weeks (Day +50) after
Lehman’s bankruptcy, since it is not clear whether shifts in beta around the bankruptcy would be
relatively long-lived or transitory. However, regardless of the period, we find no evidence of a
positive and significant shift in the average beta (relative to the (-290,-31) period) for the pre-
event period (-30,-6) or any of the event periods that follow. The results are available in the
Internet Appendix.
As a further robustness check against shifting betas, we compute abnormal returns with
procedures that match sample firms to nonsample firms according to characteristics that might be
correlated with the time-series evolution in systematic risk. In these analyses, abnormal returns
are computed as the raw return of the sample firm minus the raw return of a matched firm. Some
obvious starting points for matching criteria are industry, size, and book-to-market ratio. These
choices are motivated by literature that provides evidence of cross-sectional correlations between
these characteristics and market beta (Fama and French (1993, 1997)) and empirical asset pricing
literature that concludes that these factors are important in explaining returns (Fama and French
24
(1992) and Lyon, Barber, and Tsai (1999)). Firms in the same industry with similar size, for
example, might be subject to similar shifts in systematic risk around Lehman’s bankruptcy. An
added advantage of matching on characteristics such as industry and size is that firms similar
along these dimensions may also be sensitive to the same unobservable risk factors that may not
be captured by the factor models. In Panels D and E of Table II, we report abnormal returns
based on size and book-to-market matching and industry and size matching. With both of these
procedures we continue to find significantly negative abnormal returns among Lehman’s equity
underwriting clients around Lehman’s bankruptcy announcement.
An alternative explanation for the negative share price reaction among Lehman’s equity
underwriting clients could be the loss of a lending relationship. As previously mentioned, 42 of
Lehman’s equity underwriting clients had active credit facilities in which Lehman was a member
of the lending syndicate. To assess whether these firms drive our results, we repeat the event
study in Table II after dropping these firms. For the remaining 142 firms, the mean (-5,+1), (0,0),
and (0,+1) CARs based on the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model are -4.47%, -1.48%, and -
1.65%, which are all statistically and economically significant. Thus, our conclusions persist
even after eliminating firms for which Lehman was a lender.
Another alternative explanation for the negative reaction among sample firms could be
implied lower liquidity due to the loss of a primary market maker. Thirteen Lehman equity
underwriting clients used Lehman as their NYSE specialist, and Lehman was a registered dealer
for all 104 NASDAQ firms in the sample. In order to assess the magnitude of Lehman’s market-
making role for sample NASDAQ firms, we obtain data directly from NASDAQ on the number
25
of shares traded by Lehman as a registered dealer in the months prior to the bankruptcy. These
data were publicly available to investors at the time of the bankruptcy. For each stock, we
compute Lehman’s market-making market share as the number of shares traded by Lehman as a
dealer during the three months prior to the bankruptcy scaled by the total number of shares
traded during the same period (as in Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2002)). For NASDAQ firms,
the average Lehman market share as a market maker is 6% and the maximum is only 16.6%.
According to Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2002), the dominant market maker typically has a
market share in excess of 50%. Thus, Lehman played only a modest role as a NASDAQ market
maker for sample firms. Nonetheless, for robustness, we examine how our results are affected if
we eliminate all NASDAQ firms and firms for which Lehman was the specialist. The remaining
firms are all listed on the NYSE, and investors would have been aware that Lehman was not a
key market maker for these firms since the identity of the specialist is in the public domain. For
these 68 firms, the mean Fama-French-Carhart CARs over the (-5,+1), (0,0), and (0,+1) periods
are -5.7%, -3.8%, and -2.3%, respectively, and all are statistically significant. Thus, our results
continue to hold when we focus on firms for which the market would have known with certainty
that Lehman was not a key market maker.
17
D. Debt Underwriting, M&A Advising, Market Making, and Analyst coverage
Table III explores the market reaction of Lehman’s other client groups. We report four-
factor model-adjusted abnormal returns of firms that received debt underwriting services, M&A
advising services, NYSE specialist services, and analyst coverage from Lehman. Additionally,
we divide each of these groups into two subsamples: firms that also received common stock
26
underwriting services from Lehman and firms that did not. We report Fama-French-Carhart four-
factor CARs for both subsamples. Panel A of Table III reports mean CARs for all 53 firms that
employed Lehman as a lead underwriter for a public straight debt offering. We do not find
statistically significant CARs over the (-5,+1), (0,0), and (0,+1) windows. Twelve of the straight
debt clients were also equity underwriting customers. Consistent with our previous results for
equity underwriting, we find some evidence of a negative reaction among this subsample of debt
clients, as the mean CARs over the (0,+1), and (-5,+1) windows are -4.08% and -7.29%,
respectively, both statistically significant at the 10% level or better. In contrast, the 41 straight
debt clients that did not also receive equity underwriting services from Lehman show no
evidence of a significant negative reaction to Lehman’s collapse. Overall, our event study
analysis provides no compelling evidence that the rupture of straight debt underwriting
relationships precipitated by Lehman’s collapse adversely affected straight debt underwriting
clients.
**** Insert Table III about here ****
In Panel B of Table III, we find no evidence of a significantly negative reaction among
convertible debt underwriting clients. While the event period abnormal returns for these seven
firms tend to be large in magnitude, none are significantly negative, and it would be difficult to
draw strong conclusions in any case due to the very small number of firms in this sample. Panel
C of Table III reports the stock price reaction of Lehman’s M&A clients. For all 87 firms, there
is no evidence of a negative mean stock price reaction, as the mean CARs over the (0,0), (0,+1),
and (-5,+1) windows are all (insignificantly) positive. Splitting this sample according to whether
27
the firm also received equity underwriting services does not yield significantly negative
abnormal returns for either subsample. Overall, we find no evidence that the M&A advisory
relationship has enduring value for Lehman’s M&A clients.
Panel D of Table III documents the stock price reaction of firms for which Lehman was
the NYSE specialist. For all 151 firms, there is no evidence of significantly negative abnormal
returns over the (0,0), (0,+1), and (-5,+1) windows. Splitting this sample according to whether
the firm received equity underwriting services does not yield significantly negative abnormal
returns for either group. Thus, we conclude that Lehman’s collapse had no significant adverse
impact on Lehman’s NYSE market-making clients.
In Panel E of Table III, we report CARs for firms that received analyst coverage from
Lehman just prior to Lehman’s bankruptcy. For all 633 firms, we find no evidence of a negative
mean stock price reaction. For the 122 firms that received analyst coverage and equity
underwriting services, the mean (0,0) and (-5,+1) CARs of -0.99% and -4.20%, respectively, are
significant at the 10% level or better. However, this finding appears to be driven by the equity
underwriting relationship since we do not find significant abnormal returns during the same
periods for the 511 firms that did not receive equity underwriting services from Lehman.
E. Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity Underwriting
Clients to Lehman’s Bankruptcy
We have reported strong evidence that, on average, Lehman’s equity underwriting clients
reacted negatively to Lehman’s collapse. In this section, we investigate the cross-sectional
28
determinants of this market reaction by regressing two-day CARs on measures of the strength of
the client’s relationship with Lehman and on various client characteristics.
Table IV reports the results of our cross-sectional analysis. Since all the firms in the
sample have the same event period in calendar time, we use the portfolio weighted least squares
(PWLS) approach of Chandra and Balachandran (1992), which produces unbiased estimates of
the regression coefficient standard errors when abnormal returns over the event window are
heteroskedastic and correlated across firms.
18
We estimate the PWLS regressions over the period
Day -290 to Day +10 using the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model and a two-day event
window (Days 0 and +1).
**** Insert Table IV about here ****
We find evidence that the stock price reaction to Lehman’s collapse is negatively related
to the number of stock offerings that the client conducted with Lehman. The coefficient
estimates on the natural logarithm of one plus the number of offerings underwritten by Lehman
are all negative and significant at the 10% level. To the extent that multiple offerings with
Lehman indicate a stronger relationship, this finding supports the hypothesis that an issuer with a
stronger relationship with its underwriter should lose more value when its underwriter fails. In
addition, we find that the client’s stock price reaction is negatively related to Lehman’s share of
the client’s common stock offering, although not significantly.
19
We find that equity underwriting clients lose more value if Lehman is also the lead lender
in one of the firm’s syndicated credit facilities. In all specifications, the dummy variable that
captures this effect is negative and significant. However, we do not find greater losses associated
29
with Lehman acting merely as a participant lender to the firm, as the dummy variable capturing
this effect is statistically insignificant.
We find strong evidence that equity underwriting clients that also use Lehman for
underwriting straight debt and convertible debt are especially adversely affected. In all
specifications, the underwriting relationship scope index is negative and statistically significant.
Regarding ownership stakes in clients, we find that client abnormal returns are not significantly
related to the proportion of the client’s shares owned by LBHI or the proportion of shares owned
by Neuberger Berman LLC, although the coefficient estimates are negative as expected.
The client’s stock price reaction is positively related to client size and age. In
specifications (1), (2), (3), and (5), the client’s two-day CAR is positively related to the natural
log of the client’s market capitalization of equity at the 10% level or better. In specifications (2)
through (5), the coefficients on the natural log of the client’s age are positive and significant at
the 10% level or better. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that larger and older
clients should be less adversely affected by the failure of their underwriter. On the other hand,
the shelf registration dummy is always positive, but also always insignificant.
Firms with less cash and firms with higher likelihoods of financial distress respond more
negatively to Lehman’s collapse. Two-day CARs are positively related to the cash-to-assets ratio
at the 5% level in specifications (3) and (5) and positively related to Z-score at the 5% level in
specification (4). This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that firms with greater
immediate need for external capital respond more negatively to the failure of their underwriter.
30
Economically, the factors with the largest effects in Table IV are the scope of the firm’s
underwriting relationship with Lehman, whether Lehman also acted as a lead lender, and the
firm’s cash holdings. The coefficient estimates on the underwriting relationship scope index
imply that each additional underwriting service (straight debt or convertible debt) received from
Lehman decreases the (0,+1) CAR by about 2.5 percentage points. Lehman acting as the firm’s
lead lender also reduces the CAR by roughly 2.5 percentage points. Regarding the cash-to-assets
ratio, the estimated coefficients indicate that moving from the sample’s 75
th
percentile (cash-to-
assets = 0.464) to the 25
th
percentile (cash-to-assets = 0.036) is associated with a decrease in the
(0,+1) CAR of 1.57 percentage points.
In light of these cross-sectional differences, we verify that our event study results in
Table II are not driven by specific subsamples of Lehman equity underwriting clients (e.g.,
frequent issuers, newly IPO firms, financially constrained firms, etc.) by repeating our previous
tests after excluding such firms. We continue to find negative mean event period CARs that are
statistically significant.
F. Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Debt Underwriting,
M&A, NYSE Market Making, and Analyst Coverage Clients
We investigate the cross-section of abnormal returns earned by Lehman’s debt
underwriting, M&A Advisory, NYSE specialist, and analyst coverage clients. These findings are
summarized below and are presented in the Internet Appendix.
Since there are so few convertible debt clients, we include them with the straight debt
clients and use a dummy to differentiate convertible debt underwriting. We find that a debt
31
underwriting client’s two-day CAR is significantly and negatively related to the proportion of the
client’s shares owned by both Neuberger Berman LLC and LBHI, and the scope of the firm’s
underwriting relationship with Lehman. It is positively and significantly related to the firm’s
cash-to-assets ratio. Two-day CARs earned by debt underwriting clients are not significantly
related to the number of debt offerings underwritten by Lehman, Lehman’s share of the client’s
debt offerings, whether the firm recently shelf registered a debt offering, firm size, firm age, Z-
score, net market leverage, or whether Lehman was a lead lender or participant lender to the
firm.
Performing a cross-sectional analysis of Lehman’s M&A clients reveals that a client’s
stock price reaction is negatively related to the natural logarithm of one plus the number of deals
advised by Lehman (at the 10% level) and whether Lehman is the firm’s lead lender (at the 5%
level). It is also positively and significantly related to the firm’s Z-score at the 10% level in two
of three specifications. An M&A client’s reaction is not significantly related to Lehman’s share
of the client’s M&A deals, whether Lehman is a participant lender to the firm, the proportion of
the client’s shares owned by Lehman entities, firm size, firm age, or whether the firm had a
pending M&A deal with Lehman as the advisor.
Examining the cross-section of abnormal returns earned by firms for which Lehman was
the specialist on the NYSE reveals weak evidence that stock market liquidity is a determinant of
these firms’ responses to the collapse of their specialist. The proportion of shares owned by non-
Lehman institutions is significantly and positively related to two-day CARs in one of two
specifications. If one considers institutional ownership as a proxy for liquidity, then the
32
interpretation is that firms with less liquid stock respond more negatively. Share turnover,
however, is not significantly related to abnormal returns. As with equity underwriting clients and
M&A clients, the abnormal returns earned by these firms are also significantly and positively
related to the firm’s Z-score at the 10% level or better. Two-day CARs are not significantly
related to firm size, firm age, whether Lehman was a lead or participant lender, or the proportion
of the firm’s shares owned by Lehman entities.
For firms that receive analyst coverage from Lehman just prior to the bankruptcy, we find
no evidence that firms followed by fewer non-Lehman analysts react more negatively to
Lehman’s collapse, as the natural logarithm of the number of analysts covering the firm that are
not employed by Lehman is not a significant determinant of the firm’s stock price reaction. Kelly
and Ljungqvist (2007) find that, in the quarter after a firm loses analyst coverage from a broker,
institutions are abnormally large net buyers of the firm’s stock, implying that retail investors are
net sellers. They interpret this result as indicative that retail investors are more dependent on sell-
side analyst research and that a loss of coverage may reduce their valuation and demand for the
stock. Consistent with Kelly and Ljungqvist (2007), we find that the proportion of shares owned
by non-Lehman institutions is significantly and positively related to the two-day CAR, indicating
that firms with low institutional ownership that receive analyst coverage from Lehman lose more
value around the bankruptcy. There is some evidence that younger firms are more adversely
affected, as the natural log of firm age is positive and significant at the 10% level, and also that
the share price reaction of firms receiving analyst coverage from Lehman is positively and
significantly related to the firm’s Z-score.
33
G. Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity
Underwriting, Debt Underwriting, M&A, NYSE Market Making, and Analyst Coverage
Clients
Finally, we conduct a pooled cross-sectional analysis of (0,+1) CARs earned by all firms
that received equity underwriting, debt underwriting, M&A advising, NYSE market making, or
analyst coverage services from Lehman. This analysis is presented in Table V. For each client
group, we include a dummy variable that takes the value of one if the client received that specific
service from Lehman and zero otherwise. We also include as independent variables firm-specific
characteristics (size, age, and Z-score), dummies for whether Lehman was a lead or participant
lender, and ownership of the firm’s shares by LBHI and Neuberger Berman LLC. Event study
analyses suggest that equity underwriting is the principal source of value for clients in
investment banking relationships. Our aim is to re-examine that conclusion in a multivariate
analysis that disentangles the marginal effects of each type of client-bank relationship. If our
conclusion is robust, we would expect to observe a negative and significant coefficient for equity
underwriting, and this is exactly what we find. The coefficient on the dummy variable that equals
one if the firm received equity underwriting services from Lehman and zero otherwise is
negative and significant at the 1% level in specifications (1) and (2). The interpretation is that
clients that received equity underwriting services reacted more negatively than clients that did
not receive equity underwriting services, on average. In specifications (5) through (7), we use the
natural logarithm of one plus the number of equity offerings underwritten by Lehman in lieu of a
dummy and reach the same conclusion. In contrast, the coefficients on the dummies that
34
correspond to receipt of straight debt underwriting and convertible debt underwriting are
statistically insignificant in specifications (1) and (2) as are the coefficients on the natural
logarithms of one plus the number of straight debt offerings and one plus the number of
convertible debt offerings.
**** Insert Table V about here ****
The dummy for receipt of NYSE specialist service is also insignificant in all
specifications. The analyst coverage dummy is positive and significant at the 10% level or better
in two of seven specifications, indicating that firms that received analyst coverage were less
adversely affected by the collapse of Lehman than the average client not receiving analyst
coverage. The dummy for receipt of M&A advisory services is positive and statistically
significant in specifications (1) and (2), as is the natural log of one plus the number of M&A
deals advised by Lehman in specifications (5) through (7). While this finding suggests that
Lehman M&A clients fared relatively better than the average Lehman client that did not receive
M&A advisory services, it should not be construed as evidence of a positive reaction by M&A
clients to the Lehman collapse. Indeed, the event study results reported in Panel C of Table III
show an insignificant reaction by the 87 Lehman M&A clients to the collapse. As in Table IV,
we find evidence that clients that used Lehman for multiple underwriting services (equity, debt,
and convertible debt) were especially adversely affected. The underwriting relationship scope
index is negative in all three specifications in which it is included although statistically
significant in only two of them. These results buttress our conclusion that equity underwriting is
the principal source of value for clients in investment banking relationships.
35
IV. Conclusions
The unexpected collapse of Lehman Brothers provides a unique natural experiment to
find answers to two key questions in the corporate finance and banking literatures: (1) Are
investment banking relationships valuable for client firms and, if so, (2) what are the value
drivers of these relationships? We examine the impact of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy on
different categories of the bank’s publicly traded clients by studying how their stock prices
reacted to the collapse. We find that companies that used Lehman as lead underwriter for one or
more equity offerings during the 10 years leading up to September 2008 suffered economically
and statistically significant negative abnormal returns when Lehman Brothers declared
bankruptcy. Based on Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model-adjusted abnormal returns, the
184 equity underwriting clients that we study lost 4.85% of their market value, on average, over
a seven-day period spanning the five trading days prior to and the first and second trading days
immediately following Lehman’s bankruptcy, amounting to approximately $23 billion in
aggregate risk-adjusted losses. These losses were significantly larger than for firms that were
equity underwriting clients of other large investment banks, and were especially severe for
companies that were smaller, younger, and more financially constrained, as well as companies
that had undertaken a larger number of Lehman-led equity offerings or equity offerings in
conjunction with debt offerings. No other client groups were significantly adversely affected by
Lehman’s collapse. These results show that Lehman’s collapse did, in fact, impose material
36
losses on its customers, but for the most part these losses were confined to those companies that
employed Lehman for equity underwriting.
Our findings also provide insights into the “too-big-to-fail” (TBTF) rationale for the
government rescue of financial institutions. While TBTF has traditionally been used as a
justification for the government rescue of commercial banks due to the systemic risk that their
failure would pose to the banking system, the TBTF rationale was extended to nonbanks when
the U.S. Federal Reserve orchestrated the 1998 rescue of Long-Term Capital Management,
whose failure threatened the financial markets. While the significant adverse effect of Lehman’s
bankruptcy on the financial markets in general and Lehman’s financial counterparties in
particular may have led the government to change its strategy toward allowing other large
nonbank financial institutions (such as AIG) to fail (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
(2010)), our findings identify another negative consequence of Lehman’s collapse that has been
hitherto overlooked.
37
Appendix: Variable Definitions
This appendix provides the definitions of all variables in the paper. Numbers in parentheses refer to the annual
Compustat item number. All Compustat items are for the firm’s most recent fiscal year prior to September 14,
2008.
Variable Definition
# of non-Lehman analysts Number of equity analysts in I/B/E/S not employed by Lehman during the
firm’s current fiscal quarter or last fiscal quarter (as of September 14,
2008) that made at least one earnings forecast during the same period.
# of common stock offerings
with Lehman
Number of public common stock offerings by the client lead underwritten
by Lehman during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008.
# of debt offerings with Lehman Number of public debt (straight and convertible) offerings by the client lead
underwritten by Lehman during September 14, 1998 to September 14,
2008.
# of M&A deals with Lehman Number of acquisitions by the firm of U.S. targets announced during
September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008 for which the firm employed
Lehman as a financial advisor.
Age Number of years elapsed between when the firm first appears in CRSP and
September 14, 2008.
Book-to-market Book value of common equity (#60) divided by market value of common
equity (#25*#199).
Cash-to-assets Cash and short-term investments (#1) scaled by the total assets (#6).
Debt shelf registration dummy
Dummy = 1 if the firm shelf registered (SEC Rule 415) a public debt
(straight or convertible) offering during September 14, 2006 to September
14, 2008 without taking any of the registered debt off the shelf during the
same period.
Equity shelf registration dummy
Dummy = 1 if the firm shelf registered (SEC Rule 415) a common stock
offering during September 14, 2006 to September 14, 2008 without taking
any of the registered equity off the shelf during the same period.
Lehman convertible debt
underwriting client
Dummy = 1 if the firm employed Lehman as a lead underwriter in a public
convertible debt offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14,
2008 and zero otherwise.
Lehman is lead lender Dummy = 1 if Lehman acted as the lead lender in at least one of the firm’s
syndicated credit facilities as of September 14, 2008.
Lehman is participant lender Dummy = 1 if Lehman was a lender in at least one of the firm’s active credit
facilities but was not a lead lender as of September 14, 2008.
Lehman equity underwriting
client
Dummy = 1 if the firm employed Lehman as a lead underwriter in at least
one public common stock offering during September 14, 1998 to
September 14, 2008.
Lehman M&A client Dummy = 1 if the firm was an acquirer in a completed acquisition of a U.S.
target for which Lehman served as an advisor during September 14, 1998
to September 14, 2008 and zero otherwise.
Lehman NYSE specialist Dummy = 1 if Lehman was the NYSE specialist for the firm’s stock as of
September 14, 2008 and zero otherwise.
38
Appendix-Continued
Variable Definition
Lehman’s share of client’s
common stock offerings
Number of client’s public common stock offerings credited to Lehman
divided by the total number of public common stock offerings by the client
during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. For offerings in which
Lehman was one of n lead underwriters, Lehman is credited with a 1/n
share of the offering.
Lehman’s share of client’s debt
offerings
Number of client’s public debt (straight and convertible) offerings credited
to Lehman divided by the total number of public debt offerings by the
client during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. For offerings in
which Lehman was one of n lead underwriters, Lehman is credited with a
1/n share of the offering.
Lehman’s share of client’s
M&A deals
Number of client’s completed acquisitions of U.S. targets credited to
Lehman divided by the total number of completed acquisitions of U.S.
targets by the firm during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. For
deals in which Lehman was one of n financial advisors to the firm,
Lehman is credited with a 1/n share of the deal.
Lehman straight debt
underwriting client
Dummy = 1 if the firm employed Lehman as a lead underwriter in a public
straight debt offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008
and zero otherwise.
Market cap Market value of common equity (#25*#199) in $ million.
Net market leverage Long-term debt (#9) plus short-term debt (#34) minus cash and short-term
investments (#1) divided by the market value of assets (#6-
#60+#25*#199).
Pending M&A deal with
Lehman
Dummy = 1 if Lehman advised the firm in an acquisition of a U.S. target
that was announced prior to September 14, 2008 and completed after
September 14, 2008 and zero otherwise.
Proportion of outstanding
shares owned by Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc.
Number of the firm’s common shares owned by Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. (LBHI) divided by the client's total number of outstanding shares as of
June 30, 2008. From Thomson CDS/Spectrum database on 13f Holdings
(available through WRDS).
Proportion of outstanding
shares owned by Neuberger
Berman LLC.
Number of the firm’s common shares owned by Neuberger Berman LLC
divided by the client's total number of outstanding shares as of June 30,
2008. From Thomson CDS/Spectrum database on 13f Holdings.
Proportion of outstanding
shares owned by non-Lehman
institutions
Number of the firm’s common shares owned by institutions required to
report holdings under SEC Rule 13f other than Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. and Neuberger Berman LLC as of June 30, 2008, divided by the
client's total outstanding shares. From Thomson CDS/Spectrum database
on 13f Holdings.
Share turnover Total number of shares traded during August 2008 divided by the total
number of shares outstanding.
39
Appendix-Continued
Variable Definition
Underwriting relationship scope
index
Index = 0 if the firm did not receive lead underwriting services from Lehman
for public common stock, straight debt, or convertible debt during
September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008; = 1 if the firm received one of
the three aforementioned services from Lehman; = 2 if the firm received
two of the three aforementioned underwriting services from Lehman; = 3 if
the firm received all three of the aforementioned services from Lehman.
Z-score From Altman (1968): Z = [3.3*EBIT(#178) + 1.0*sales(#12) + 1.4*retained
earnings(#36) + 1.2*working capital(#179)]/total assets(#6) + 0.6*market
cap(#25*#199)/total liabilities(#181).
40
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44
Table I
Events Surrounding Lehman’s Bankruptcy and Abnormal Returns
This table reports news and stock returns associated with events surrounding Lehman’s bankruptcy. The sample of “Lehman Equity Underwriting Clients” consists of 184
industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that used Lehman Brothers as a lead underwriter for at least one public common stock offering during the September 14, 1998 to
September 14, 2008 period. Daily abnormal returns (ARs) calculated with the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model and a 260-day estimation period (Day -290 to Day -
31). The “Financial Services Industry Daily Return” is the return to a market value-weighted portfolio containing all U.S. common stocks in CRSP with SIC codes between
6000 and 6411. Statistical significance levels of the mean abnormal return are based on the standardized cross-sectional t-statistic of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen
(1991) adjusted for cross-sectional correlation following Kolari and Pynnönen (2010). *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in
two-tailed tests.
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Equity
Underwriting Clients
(N=184)
Date
Event
Day
Closing
Stock
Price
Daily
Raw
Return
Mean
Daily AR
Value-
Weighted
Daily AR
S&P500
Daily
Return
Financial
Services
Industry
Daily
Return News
Aug. 29 -10 $16.09 1.4%
0.14% 0.09% -1.37% -1.37%
Sep.2 -9 $16.13 0.3% -0.42% -0.69% -0.41% -0.07% Korea Development Bank (KDB) CEO, Min Euoo-Sung, confirmed
rumors that KDB was considering a potential investment in Lehman.
Sep 3 -8 $16.94 5.0% 0.01% -0.93% -0.20% -0.40%
Sep. 4 -7 $15.17 -10.5% -0.35% -0.15% -2.99% -3.08%
Sep. 5 -6 $16.2 6.8% 0.02% 0.01% 0.44% -0.35%
Sep. 8 -5 $14.15 -12.7% -0.62% -1.11%** 2.05% 1.29%
Sep. 9 -4 $7.79 -45.0% -1.31%*** -1.90%*** -3.41% -2.32% Dow Jones Newswire reported that KDB put talks with Lehman on
hold. (2) S&P put Lehman's credit rating on negative "watch."
Sep. 10 -3 $7.25 -6.9% -0.17% -0.08% 0.61% 0.43% (1) Lehman announced an expected $3.9 billion loss and plans to sell
a majority stake in its investment management division, spin off real
estate assets, and cut its dividend. (2) Moody's put Lehman's credit
rating on "watch," saying it would be downgraded unless Lehman
could negotiate "a strategic transaction with a stronger financial
partner."
Sep. 11 -2 $4.22 -41.8% -0.70%* -0.19% 1.38% 1.32% The Wall Street Journal reported that Lehman spent the day shopping
itself to potential buyers, including Bank of America.
Sep. 12 -1 $3.65 -13.5% 0.02% 0.22% 0.21% 0.23%
45
Table I-Continued
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Equity
Underwriting Clients
(N=184)
Date
Event
Day
Closing
Stock
Price
Daily
Raw
Return
Mean
Daily AR
Value-
Weighted
Daily AR
S&P500
Daily
Return
Financial
Services
Industry
Daily
Return News
Sep. 13 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- (1) Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed, called a special
meeting to discuss Lehman's future and a possible emergency asset
liquidation. (2) Lehman reported that it had been talking with Bank of
America and Barclays for the company's possible sale.
Sep. 14 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Lehman announced that the company would file for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection.
Sep. 15 0 $0.21 -94.3% -1.48%*** -1.76%*** -4.71% -3.30% First day of trading after Lehman bankruptcy announcement.
Sep. 16 +1 $0.3 42.9% -0.58% -0.04% 1.75% 0.61% Barclays announced that it had agreed to purchase, subject to
regulatory approval, Lehman's New York headquarters and North
American investment banking and capital markets businesses.
Sep. 17 +2 $0.13 -56.7% -1.09% -0.52% -4.71% -4.79% Lehman’s stock delisted from the NYSE at market close.
Sep. 18 +3 -- -- 0.41% 0.58% 4.33% 4.76%
Sep. 19 +4 -- -- 2.60%** 1.93%*** 4.03% 3.00%
46
Table II
The Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity Underwriting Clients to Lehman’s Bankruptcy
“Lehman Clients” are 184 nonfinancial, non-utility firms that employed Lehman as lead underwriter in a public common
stock offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. “Clients of IBs with Similar Industry Status” are 946
nonfinancial, non-utility firms that didn’t employ Lehman but did employ one of the following banks in a public common
stock offering during the same period: Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi, UBS, Credit
Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Wachovia. In Panels A, B, and C, model parameters are estimated over
Days -290 to -31, where Day 0 is September 15, 2008. In Panels D and E, abnormal returns equal the sample firm’s raw
return minus the raw return of a matched non-sample firm. In Panel D, matched firms are selected such that the sum of the
absolute percentage differences between the market values of equity and book-to-market ratios of the sample firm and
matched firm is minimized. In Panel E, each sample firm is matched to the non-sample firm in the same Fama-French 49
industry that is closest in market value of equity. For mean CARs, t-statistics are computed with the standardized cross-
sectional method of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen (1991) and adjusted for cross-sectional correlation following Kolari
and Pynnönen (2010). The t-statistics for the differences in means are computed with the cross-sectional variances of
CARs and assume unequal variances across the two samples. *, **, and *** indicate statistical significance at the 10%,
5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in two-tailed tests.
Lehman Clients (N=184)
Clients of IBs with Similar
Industry Status (N=946) Difference in Means
(1)
(2)
Event Window Mean CAR t-stat Mean CAR t-stat (1) - (2) t-stat
Panel A: Fama-French-Carhart Four-Factor Model Adjusted Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) 0.18% 0.25 -0.21% -0.31 0.39% 0.22
(-5,+1) -4.85%*** -3.19
-1.91% -1.59 -2.94%*** -2.84
(0,0) -1.48%*** -2.78
-0.66% -1.38 -0.82%** -1.98
(0,+1) -2.07%** -2.30
-0.93%* -1.81 -1.14%* -1.84
(+2,+30) -7.07%** -2.41
-4.42%*** -2.87 -2.65% -1.11
(-30,+30) -11.7%** -2.54 -6.54%*** -2.84 -5.20% -1.45
Panel B: Fama-French Three-Factor Model Adjusted Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) 0.25% 0.25
-0.12% -0.23 0.37% 0.21
(-5,+1) -5.09%*** -3.43
-2.21%* -1.81 -2.88%*** -2.93
(0,0) -1.46%*** -2.74
-0.64% -1.26 -0.83%* -1.97
(0,+1) -2.17%** -2.35
-1.05%** -2.02 -1.11%* -1.86
(+2,+30) -6.72%** -2.35
-3.90%** -2.55 -2.82% -1.13
(-30,+30) -11.56%** -2.49 -6.23%*** -2.63 -5.33% -1.45
Panel C: Market Model Adjusted Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) 2.42% 0.76
2.92% 1.07 -0.50% -0.27
(-5,+1) -4.26%** -2.14
-1.23% -0.47 -3.04%*** -3.05
(0,0) -0.18% -0.46
0.68% 0.61 -0.87%** -2.10
(0,+1) -0.84% -0.69
0.46% 0.51 -1.29%** -2.10
(+2,+30) -11.4%*** -2.74
-9.42%*** -2.68 -1.94% -0.81
(-30,+30) -13.2%** -2.11 -7.73% -1.64 -5.48% -1.49
Panel D: Size-Book-to-Market Matched Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) -2.09% -0.55
-1.54% -0.94 -0.55% -0.27
(-5,+1) -4.77%*** -3.00
-1.29%* -1.67 -3.48%*** -2.72
(0,0) -1.25%** -2.17
0.20% 0.25 -1.45%*** -2.83
(0,+1) -1.95%** -1.97
-0.16% -0.47 -1.79%** -2.26
(+2,+30) -10.9%** -2.56
-9.47%*** -3.56 -1.39% -0.43
(-30,+30) -17.7%*** -2.90
-12.3%*** -3.59 -5.41% -1.17
Panel E: Industry-Size Matched Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) -1.37% -0.55 -0.94% -0.78 -0.43% -0.24
(-5,+1) -4.03%*** -3.19 -1.44%** -2.25 -2.59%** -2.34
(0,0) -1.23%*** -2.65 0.02% -0.24 -1.24%*** -2.69
(0,+1) -1.36%* -1.87 -0.04% -0.25 -1.33%* -1.89
(+2,+30) -8.15%** -2.53 -5.13%** -2.36 -3.02% -1.04
(-30,+30) -13.6%*** -3.06 -7.51%*** -2.84 -6.04% -1.52
47
Table III
The Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Debt Underwriting Clients, M&A Clients, Firms for which
Lehman Served as the NYSE Specialist, and Firms that Received Analyst Coverage from Lehman
In Panel A, the sample consists of 53 industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that used Lehman as a lead
underwriter for at least one public straight debt offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. In
Panel B, the sample consists of seven industrial firms that used Lehman as a lead underwriter for at least one
public convertible debt offering during the same period. In Panel C, the sample consists of 87 industrial firms
that used Lehman as a financial advisor on a completed acquisition announced during the same time period. In
Panel D, the sample consists of 151 industrial firms listed on the NYSE for which Lehman was the NYSE
specialist at the time of Lehman’s bankruptcy. In Panel E, the sample consists of 633 industrial firms for which
an analyst from Lehman made at least one earnings forecast during the firm’s current fiscal quarter or last fiscal
quarter. The “Equity Underwriting” samples consist of firms that also received equity underwriting services
from Lehman. Day 0 is September 15, 2008. Abnormal returns are estimated using the Fama-French-Carhart
four-factor model and a 260-day estimation period (-290,-31). All t-statistics are computed with the
standardized cross-sectional method of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen (1991) and adjusted for cross-
sectional correlation following Kolari and Pynnönen (2010). *, **, and *** indicate statistical significance at
the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in two-tailed t-tests.
Event
Window Mean CAR t-stat
Mean CAR t-stat Mean CAR t-stat
Panel A: Lehman Public Straight Debt Underwriting Clients
All (N=53)
Equity Underwriting (N=12)
No Equity Underwriting (N=41)
(-30,-6) 2.55%* 1.85 -1.20% -0.89 3.65%** 2.13
(-5,+1) -0.37% -0.01 -7.29%* -2.27 1.66% 1.66
(0,0) 0.25% 0.63 -2.08% -1.74 0.93%** 2.13
(0,+1) -0.88% -0.98 -4.08%** -2.31 0.06% 0.44
(+2,+30) -7.72%** -2.10 -20.62%* -2.09 -3.95% -1.24
(-30,+30) -5.54% -0.82 -29.11%** -2.96 1.36% 0.49
Panel B: Lehman Public Convertible Debt Underwriting Clients
All (N=7)
Equity Underwriting (N=5)
No Equity Underwriting (N=2)
(-30,-6) 2.96% 1.03 3.75% 1.02 0.99% 0.21
(-5,+1) -5.25% -1.24 -7.17% -1.33 -0.46% 0.04
(0,0) -2.98% -1.57 -2.28% -1.09 -4.74% -3.13
(0,+1) -1.18% -0.68 -0.69% -0.47 -2.43% -1.32
(+2,+30) -12.27% -1.31 -9.34% -0.7 -19.58% -4.87
(-30,+30) -14.56% -1.09 -12.76% -0.75 -19.05% -1.39
Panel C: Lehman M&A Clients
All (N=87)
Equity Underwriting (N=24)
No Equity Underwriting (N=63)
(-30,-6) 3.02%* 1.68 5.56%* 1.84 2.05% 1.14
(-5,+1) 1.30% 1.06 0.43% 0.14 1.63% 1.21
(0,0) 0.47% 0.42 -0.86% -0.90 0.97% 0.64
(0,+1) 0.49% 0.36 -0.37% -0.09 0.82% 0.43
(+2,+30) -8.54%** -2.17 -8.86%** -2.20 -8.42%* -1.70
(-30,+30) -4.22% -0.68 -2.87% -0.55 -4.74% -0.56
48
Table III-Continued
Panel D: Lehman is the NYSE Specialist
All (N=151)
Equity Underwriting (N=13)
No Equity Underwriting (N=138)
(-30,-6) 0.65% 0.37 4.31% 1.66 0.31% 0.16
(-5,+1) 0.03% 0.27 -1.47% -0.17 0.17% 0.32
(0,0) -0.07% 0.08 1.92% 1.45 -0.26% -0.14
(0,+1) -0.70% -0.93 1.91%* 2.13 -0.95% -1.20
(+2,+30) -7.84%** -2.54 -16.63%** -2.25 -7.01%** -2.23
(-30,+30) -7.16%* -1.68 -13.80% -1.15 -6.54% -1.53
Panel E: Firms Receiving Analyst Coverage from Lehman
All (N=633)
Equity Underwriting (N=122)
No Equity Underwriting (N=511)
(-30,-6) 1.40% 1.32 1.81% 0.54 1.30% 1.36
(-5,+1) -0.38% -0.02 -4.20%** -2.55 0.54% 0.93
(0,0) -0.11% 0.07 -0.99%* -1.92 0.10% 0.66
(0,+1) -0.16% -0.39 -0.55% -1.08 -0.06% -0.08
(+2,+30) -5.33%** -2.83 -5.84%* -1.93 -5.21%*** -2.60
(-30,+30) -4.31%* -1.76 -8.23%* -1.82 -3.37% -1.39
49
Table IV
Cross-Sectional Analysis of Lehman Equity Underwriting Clients’ Stock Price Reaction
to Lehman's Bankruptcy
The sample consists of 184 industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that used Lehman Brothers as a lead underwriter
for at least one public common stock offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. All regressions are
estimated using the portfolio weighted least squares (PWLS) approach of Chandra and Balachandran (1992) over Day -
290 to Day +10 using a two-day event period (Day 0 and Day +1) and the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model. Day
0 is September 15, 2008. The reported coefficients represent the marginal effect of the independent variable on the
client’s two-day percentage CAR. All variable definitions are in the Appendix. All t-statistics are reported in parentheses
below estimated coefficients. *, **, and *** indicate statistical significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively,
in two-tailed tests.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
-1.51* -1.54* -1.434* -1.444* Ln(1 + # of common stock
offerings with Lehman) (-1.88) (-1.92) (-1.80) (-1.72)
-0.934 -0.652 Lehman’s share of client’s
common stock offerings (-0.92) (-0.62)
Lehman is lead lender -2.548** -2.834** -2.392** -2.622** -2.440**
(-2.25) (-2.52) (-2.17) (-2.37) (-2.22)
Lehman is participant lender -0.34 -0.53 -0.18 -0.378 -0.214
(-0.46) (-0.73) (-0.25) (-0.52) (-0.29)
-18.652 -19.66 -18.576 -18.328 -19.378 Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc
(-1.14) (-1.20) (-1.14) (-1.12) (-1.18)
-13.632 -14.454 -7.668 -12.27 -6.254 Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Neuberger Berman
LLC
(-0.81) (-0.84) (-0.46) (-0.73) (-0.37)
Equity shelf registration dummy 1.782 1.848 1.896 1.824 1.874
(1.42) (1.48) (1.51) (1.45) (1.50)
0.582 0.702* 0.684* 0.772** 0.712* Ln(age)
(1.56) (1.88) (1.86) (2.08) (1.94)
0.508* 0.452* 0.606** 0.356 0.578** Ln(market cap)
(1.90) (1.67) (2.24) (1.37) (2.11)
Net market leverage -1.896 -2.074
(-1.14) (-1.22)
Cash-to-assets 3.68** 3.728**
(2.06) (2.07)
Z-score 0.08**
(2.09)
-2.438** -2.798** -2.458** -2.432** -2.472** Underwriting relationship scope
index (-2.05) (-2.34) (-2.07) (-2.05) (-2.09)
Intercept -2.296 -2.562 -4.218* -2.254 -3.820*
(-1.11) (-1.21) (-1.95) (-1.09) (-1.74)
Number of firms 184 184 184 184 184
50
Table V
Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis of Lehman Clients’ Stock Price Reaction to Lehman’s Bankruptcy
The sample consists of 807 industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that received at least one of the following services from
Lehman Brothers: underwriting of a public common stock, public straight debt, or public convertible debt offering during
September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008; financial advisory service in a completed acquisition of a U.S. target announced
during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008; market-making service as the NYSE specialist at the time of Lehman’s
bankruptcy; and coverage (at least one earnings forecast) by an equity analyst from Lehman during the firm’s current fiscal
quarter or last fiscal quarter, where the current fiscal quarter contains September 15, 2008. All regressions are estimated using
the portfolio weighted least squares (PWLS) approach of Chandra and Balachandran (1992) over Day -290 to Day +10 using a
two-day event period (Day 0 and Day +1) and the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model. Day 0 is September 15, 2008. The
reported coefficients represent the marginal effect of the independent variable on the client’s two-day percentage CAR. All
variable definitions are in the Appendix. All t-statistics are reported in parentheses below estimated coefficients. *, **, and ***
indicate statistical significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in two-tailed tests.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
-1.714*** -1.265*** Lehman equity underwriting
client (-3.25) (-2.70)
-2.815*** -2.36*** -2.20*** Ln(1+ # of common stock
offerings with Lehman) (-4.77) (-4.45) (-4.26)
-0.477 -0.034 Lehman straight debt
underwriting client (-1.42) (-0.09)
0.417 0.560 0.639 Ln(1+ # of straight debt offerings
with Lehman) (1.03) (1.48) (1.46)
-0.292 0.079 Lehman convertible debt
underwriting client (-0.14) (0.04)
-1.753 -1.496 -1.259 Ln(1+ # of convertible debt
offerings with Lehman) (-0.26) (-0.22) (-0.19)
Lehman M&A client 0.911*** 1.021*** 0.991*** 1.034***
(2.74) (3.07) (2.95) (3.11)
0.871** 1.15*** 1.188*** Ln(1+ # of M&A deals with
Lehman) (1.97) (2.64) (2.81)
Lehman NYSE specialist -0.091 -0.002 -0.069 0.027 -0.196 -0.134 -0.145
(-0.26) (-0.01) (-0.20) (0.08) (-0.56) (-0.39) (-0.42)
Lehman analyst coverage 0.692* 0.703 0.802** 0.693 0.451 0.517 0.520
(1.69) (1.60) (1.99) (1.58) (1.10) (1.19) (1.20)
-1.157*** -0.747** -0.190 Underwriting relationship scope
index (-3.48) (-2.17) (-0.50)
Lehman is lead lender -2.893*** -2.807*** -3.167*** -3.047***
(-3.76) (-3.65) (-4.06) (-3.96)
Lehman is participant lender -0.151 0.02 -0.084 -0.014
(-0.46) (0.06) (-0.27) (-0.04)
-19.216 -18.733 -15.698 -14.879
Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc
(-1.26) (-1.22) (-1.02) (-0.96)
-8.435 -9.358 -8.264 -8.076 Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Neuberger Berman
LLC
(-0.96) (-1.06) (-0.93) (-0.92)
0.468** 0.507** 0.463** 0.46**
Ln(age)
(2.34) (2.49) (2.29) (2.29)
-0.121 -0.073 -0.139 -0.141 Ln(market cap)
(-1.02) (-0.63) (-1.21) (-1.23)
Z-score 0.118*** 0.114*** 0.112*** 0.112***
(4.05) (3.95) (3.90) (3.90)
Intercept -0.645 -1.500 -0.759 -2.048* -0.472 -1.114 -1.072
(-1.21) (-1.36) (-1.48) (-1.91) (-0.90) (-1.04) (-1.00)
Number of firms 807 804 807 804 807 804 804
51
Notes
1
Examples of rescues during the 2008 financial crisis include the J.P. Morgan takeover of Bear Stearns, Bank of
America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch, and the U.S. Government’s bailout of American International Group, Fannie
Mae, and Freddie Mac.
2
Benveniste and Spindt (1989) present a theoretical rationale for this argument, while Benveniste and Wilhelm
(1990), Cornelli and Goldreich (2001), Ritter and Welch (2002), Ljungqvist, Jenkinson, and Wilhelm (2003), and
Gao and Ritter (2010) provide empirical support. Brau and Fawcett (2006) observe that the majority of CFOs in
their survey carefully weigh the institutional client base of the underwriter.
3
More generally, Gande, Puri, and Saunders (1999), Song (2004), and Narayanan, Rangan, and Rangan (2004) all
document that the entry of commercial banks into the securities underwriting business (mostly debt underwriting)
has benefited issuing firms by reducing average fees charged by all underwriters. However, Shivdasani and Song
(2010) argue that these benefits came at the cost of lower screening incentives among bond underwriters and show
that industries with higher commercial bank penetration tended to have lower screening standards during 1996 to
2000.
4
See McLaughlin (1990), Servaes and Zenner (1996), Rau (2000), Kale, Kini, and Ryan (2003), Allen et al. (2004),
and Kisgen, Qian, and Song (2009).
5
See Cao, Choe, and Hatheway (1997), Corwin (1999), Coughenour and Deli (2002), Ellis Michaely, and O’Hara
(2000, 2002), and Corwin, Harris, and Lipson (2004).
6
Throughout, any references to underwriters or underwriting refer only to lead or co-lead underwriters, not co-
managers.
7
For example, 95% of the largest 1,000 claims among the 57,057 claims lodged as of the November 2, 2009 final
filing deadline (In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 08-13555, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New
York) were from financial firms.
8
Megginson and Weiss (1991) compute underwriting market share as the fraction of prior year equity offerings
underwritten by a given bank, while Carter and Manaster (1990) assign numerical rankings of zero to nine based on
an underwriter’s relative position in IPO tombstone announcements, with a ranking of nine corresponding to the
most prestigious underwriters and zero to the least prestigious. The updated Carter-Manaster rankings are
generously provided by Jay Ritter on his webpage.
9
Thomson has removed all earnings forecasts made by a Lehman analyst from the August 2009 I/B/E/S data that are
available through WRDS. We obtained our I/B/E/S data directly from Thomson, and Thomson generously provided
us the data that still contain those observations.
10
For detailed descriptions of all variables in the paper, please see the Appendix. While we have carried out similar
cross-sectional analyses for the other client categories, the results are not reported in the paper but are available in
52
the Internet Appendix, which is published on the Journal of Finance website at
http://www.afajof.org/supplements.asp.
11
SEC Rule 13f is set up to have no overlap in the holdings reported by subsidiaries and parents or different
subsidiaries of the same parent. Parents may file on behalf of subsidiaries, but if a subsidiary files on its own behalf,
the holdings reported by the subsidiary are not reported on the 13f filing of the parent, and vice versa.
12
The data in CDA/Spectrum are based on quarterly SEC filings. We measure these variables over the prior
calendar quarter, which ended June 30, 2008.
13
The daily factor returns for the SMB, HML, and UMD portfolios are generously provided by Kenneth French on
his website.
14
For example, our sample of Lehman equity underwriting clients is typical of recent stock issuer samples in that
the average market capitalization is lower than the CRSP average and the average and median book-to-market ratios
are lower than the CRSP average and median, respectively.
15
Brav, Geczy, and Gompers (2000) find that equally weighted portfolios comprised of recent stock issuers (IPOs
and SEOs) do not exhibit long-run abnormal underperformance when the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model is
used to estimate abnormal returns. They conclude that the model sufficiently captures the joint covariation of issuer
returns.
16
Unless otherwise stated, all statements of statistical significance refer to the 5% level or better in two-tailed tests.
17
We also investigate the possibility that abnormal returns of Lehman’s equity underwriting clients reflect
temporary overreactions by examining mean CARs over the (+2,+30) window. However, all the post-event mean
CARs in Table II are negative, which is inconsistent with temporary overreaction. Another concern is that the event
period CARs will understate true client losses if Lehman’s collapse was highly anticipated prior to the event period.
To explore this possibility, we examine abnormal returns over the (-30,-6) period. As reported in Table II, we find
no evidence of significantly negative abnormal returns over this pre-event period, indicating that little would be
gained by including the (-30,-6) CARs in our value loss estimates.
18
PWLS is the weighted version of the portfolio time series ordinary least squares (POLS) approach of Sefcik and
Thompson (1986). As with weighted least squares (WLS), each observation receives a weight that is inversely
proportional to its variance in PWLS, where the variance is estimated using a time series of residuals from the
chosen asset return generating model. We use the time series of residuals from the four-factor model estimated over
the pre-event estimation period (Day -290 to -31) to estimate the variance of each observation.
19
We employ several alternate ways of measuring the firm’s reliance on Lehman relative to other investment banks,
including using Lehman’s share of the client’s common stock proceeds (rather than offerings), using the natural log
of the number of lead underwriters that the firm dealt with in its equity offerings during the sample period, and using
a dummy variable to differentiate clients that dealt exclusively with Lehman. As with Lehman’s share of the client’s
common stock offerings, these alternatives have the predicted sign but are never significant.
doc_325821268.pdf
The question of whether firms derive value from investment banking relationships has received considerable attention in the literature, especially since the increasingly competitive market forinvestment banking services would suggest that firms can switch investment banks costlessly.
1
The Value of Investment Banking Relationships:
Evidence from the Collapse of Lehman Brothers
CHITRU S. FERNANDO, ANTHONY D. MAY, and WILLIAM L. MEGGINSON
?
ABSTRACT
We examine the long-standing question of whether firms derive value from investment bank
relationships by studying how the Lehman collapse affected industrial firms that received
underwriting, advisory, analyst, and market-making services from Lehman. Equity underwriting
clients experienced an abnormal return of around -5%, on average, in the seven days surrounding
Lehman’s bankruptcy, amounting to $23 billion in aggregate risk-adjusted losses. Losses were
especially severe for companies that had stronger and broader security underwriting relationships
with Lehman or were smaller, younger, and more financially constrained. Other client groups
were not adversely affected.
?
Fernando and Megginson are from the Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. May is from the
W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. We thank Jim Brau, Tim Burch, Agnes Chang, Jay
Choi, Jonathan Clarke, Arnie Cowan, Louis Ederington, Sadok El Ghoul, Joseph Fan, Mark Flannery, Veljko Fotak,
Xiaohui Gao, Vladimir Gatchev, Edith Ginglinger, Sridhar Gogineni, Radha Gopalan, Rob Hansen, Kate Holland,
Ravi Jagannathan, Tomas Jandik, Ed Kane, Bill Lane, Ji-Chai Lin, Laura Lindsey, Alexander Ljungqvist, Brian
Lucey, Joe Mason, Ron Masulis, Vikram Nanda, Kasper Nielsen, Rajesh Narayanan, Maureen O’Hara, Teodora
Paligorova, Adrian Pop, Manju Puri, Vikas Raman, Raghavendra Rau, Jay Ritter, Scott Smart, Duane Stock, Hugh
Thomas, Vahap Uysal, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, and seminar participants at the Chinese University of Hong Kong,
the 2010 FMA-Europe conference in Hamburg, the 2010 FMA-Asia conference in Singapore, the 2010 FMA
meeting (New York), the 2010 Financial Intermediation Research Society meeting (Florence), the 2010 INFINITI
conference (Dublin), Louisiana State University, the 2010 Oklahoma Finance Conference, the 2011 AFA meetings,
Université Paris Dauphine, the University of Hong Kong, and the University of Oklahoma for helpful discussions
and comments. We thank two referees, an associate editor, and the editor, Campbell Harvey, for suggestions that
significantly improved the paper. A part of this research was conducted when Chitru Fernando was visiting at the
SMU Cox School of Business and Bill Megginson was visiting at Université Paris-Dauphine (UPD) as a guest of the
Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF) Chair in Corporate Finance. We thank SMU and UPD for their gracious
hospitality and Mariusz Lysak for research assistance. We are responsible for any remaining errors.
2
The question of whether firms derive value from investment banking relationships has received
considerable attention in the literature, especially since the increasingly competitive market for
investment banking services would suggest that firms can switch investment banks costlessly.
Extant research has failed to come up with an unambiguous answer, however, due in part to the
difficulty in measuring the value of relationship capital.
The sudden collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 14, 2008 (then the fifth largest
investment bank in the world) provides a unique natural experimental setting to measure the
value of the relationships that client firms had with Lehman. Whereas large U.S. financial
institutions in distress have almost invariably been prevented from declaring bankruptcy by
being acquired by other large institutions (often with the intervention of the U.S. government),
Lehman was explicitly allowed to fail.
1
This unprecedented collapse was all the more shocking
since Barclays Bank had been negotiating an acquisition with Lehman’s managers right up to
Saturday, September 13, 2008, the day before Lehman announced the largest bankruptcy filing in
U.S. history. When stock market trading resumed on Monday, September 15, 2008, Lehman’s
stock lost virtually all its value, the U.S. stock market experienced one of its worst single-day
losses, and the entire global financial system was pushed to the edge of collapse.
The acquisition by an investment bank of valuable private information about a firm
(James (1992), Schenone (2004), and Drucker and Puri (2005)), investment bank monitoring
(Hansen and Torregrosa (1992)), investment by banks in institutional investor networks
(Benveniste and Spindt (1989), Cornelli and Goldreich (2001), Ritter and Welch (2002), and
Ljungqvist, Jenkinson, and Wilhelm (2003)), switching costs incurred by firms in moving to a
3
new underwriter (Burch, Nanda, and Warther (2005) and Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2006)),
and optimal firm-underwriter matching (Fernando, Gatchev, and Spindt (2005)) would all
suggest that the relationship is jointly valuable to the firm and its underwriter. However, there is
no clear evidence on the extent to which client firms receive a share of any value created from
the relationship. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that client firms frequently switch
underwriters, especially to those of higher reputation (Krigman, Shaw, and Womack (2001) and
Fernando, Gatchev, and Spindt (2005)), which also raises questions about the extent to which
client firms share any value created by the relationship. Additionally, while investment banks
provide a variety of services in addition to underwriting equity and debt offerings, the extent to
which these services create value for clients from a long-term investment bank relationship is
also unknown.
We examine how the Lehman collapse affected industrial firms that received
underwriting, advisory, analyst, and market-making services from Lehman by studying how their
stock prices reacted on Monday, September 15 and over various short-term windows around that
day. We identify more than 800 public industrial companies that received one or more of these
five services from Lehman during the 10 years leading up to and including 2008, as well as a
comparable number (946) of firms that received equity underwriting services from Lehman’s
competitors. We address two specific research questions: First, did Lehman’s collapse impact its
investment banking (IB) clients over and above the impact the firm’s collapse had on the equity
market in general, and second, did the impact of Lehman’s failure vary with the type of IB
service received, client characteristics, and/or the strength of the client’s relationship with
4
Lehman? These questions are central to understanding how intermediaries create value for their
clients. To our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to isolate the value of the
investment bank relationship to clients using a broad group of client firms and all major
investment banking services.
Companies that had used Lehman as lead underwriter for one or more equity offerings
during the 10 years leading up to September 2008 suffered economically and statistically
significant negative abnormal returns. Based on Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model adjusted
abnormal returns, the 184 equity underwriting clients that we study lost 4.85% of their market
value, on average, over a seven-day period spanning the five trading days prior to and the first
and second trading days immediately following Lehman’s bankruptcy filing, amounting to
approximately $23 billion in aggregate risk-adjusted losses. We arrive at similar value loss
estimates and conclusions using alternative return generating models. These losses were
significantly larger than those for firms that were equity underwriting clients of other large
investment banks, and were especially severe for companies that had stronger and broader
underwriting relationships with Lehman, including equity clients that also engaged Lehman for
debt and convertible debt underwriting. Losses were also higher for smaller, younger, and more
financially constrained firms. No other client groups were significantly adversely affected by
Lehman’s bankruptcy.
These results show that Lehman’s collapse did, in fact, impose material losses on its
customers, but for the most part these losses were confined to those companies that employed
Lehman for equity underwriting. Furthermore, to the extent that investors partially anticipated
5
Lehman’s failure prior to the days surrounding Lehman’s bankruptcy announcement, these
estimates may actually understate the losses suffered by Lehman’s equity underwriting clients.
More broadly, these results tell us that underwriting is the principal portion of the overall
investment banking relationship that is irreplaceable without significant cost and whose value
will be forfeited if the relationship were to be involuntarily ruptured.
The rest of our paper is organized as follows. In Section I we briefly review the existing
literature on firm-intermediary relationships in corporate finance and formulate our empirical
hypotheses. Section II describes our data and methodology. Section III presents our findings on
the impact of the Lehman collapse. Section IV concludes.
I. Background
We organize our discussion by first reviewing the literature on investment banking
relationships and then discussing the empirical implications pertaining to the value of investment
banking relationships to clients.
A. Firm-Investment Bank Relationships
The extant theoretical and empirical literature has examined ways in which a long-term
equity underwriting relationship between an investment bank and a client firm can create value
for both parties. The first such channel is economies of scale. James (1992) and Burch, Nanda,
and Warther (2005) show that set-up costs in the IPO due diligence process create durable
relationship capital that lowers underwriting spreads for firms that are expected to issue equity
again, and Kovner (2010) provides evidence of valuable relationship capital being created for
6
IPO clients. Equity underwriters also create significant value for their clients by monitoring
(Hansen and Torregrosa (1992)) and by investing in the development and maintenance of
institutional investor networks that serve as channels not only for collecting information but also
for the distribution of shares through book building, thereby reducing the indirect costs of equity
offerings.
2
Finally, the presence of switching costs also suggests that an underwriting
relationship will be valuable due to the cost of rupturing it to establish a new equity underwriting
relationship (Burch, Nanda, and Warther (2005) and Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2006)).
However, these studies do not account for the added benefit that firms may receive by employing
a higher quality underwriter. Krigman, Shaw, and Womack (2001) and Fernando, Gatchev, and
Spindt (2005) show that seasoned firms often voluntarily switch from lower to higher quality
underwriters, which suggests that the benefits of establishing a new underwriting relationship
may sometimes outweigh the costs.
Burch, Nanda, and Warther (2005) argue that firms derive less value from a debt
underwriting relationship based on their finding that in contrast to repeat equity issuers, which
benefit from significantly reduced underwriting fees for subsequent offerings, debt issuers are
actually penalized (charged higher underwriting fees) for retaining the previous underwriter for
subsequent bond offerings. While several studies, including Rajan (1992), Boot and Thakor
(2000), Schenone (2004), Yasuda (2005), and Bharath et al. (2007), argue that an existing
lending relationship between a bank and borrowing firm can be mutually beneficial, it is
unknown whether these findings carry over to debt underwriting, although some of these studies
also document economies of scope between lending and underwriting.
3
Additionally, in contrast
7
to equity offerings, debt ratings by rating agencies make underwriter debt certification and
placement less valuable to clients.
Studies that examine the relationship between acquiring firms and the investment banks
that advise them generally show that banks do provide valuable advisory services to acquirers
involved in takeover contests, and that employing more prestigious banks is associated with
superior outcomes for clients.
4
However, these studies also generally find that banks advising
clients on acquisitions face conflicts of interest between their desire to provide unbiased advice
and their desire to consummate deals in order to collect completion payments. Additionally,
there is no evidence that client acquirer firms derive persistent value from such a relationship or
that any relationship is not transferable to another investment bank without a significant cost to
the client. Much of the private information collected during the M&A process pertains to the
target firm and this information loses value immediately after a deal is consummated.
The investment banking literature indicates that security analysts employed by
prestigious banks can provide valuable services to client firms, as shown by Mikhail, Walther,
and Willis (2004) and Ivkovi? and Jegadeesh (2004). However, it is less clear whether that
relationship is firm-specific (between client firm and bank) or person-specific (between client
firm and analyst). The available evidence suggests that any value in an existing analyst
relationship will simply be transferred costlessly to a new bank that employs the analyst after the
original bank’s failure (Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm (2006) and Clarke et al. (2007)).
Finally, while several studies examine the value of market making for NYSE listed
firms,
5
the value of any market making provided by underwriters appears to be short-lived,
8
helping to stabilize an offering in the immediate aftermath of an IPO but progressively becoming
less important over the ensuing months. Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2000) show that the
underwriter is almost always the dominant dealer in the three month period after a NASDAQ
IPO and that the underwriter engages in price stabilization during this period. Schultz and Zaman
(1994), Aggarwal (2000), and Corwin, Harris, and Lipson (2004) also show that the underwriter
engages in price stabilization just after the IPO.
B. Empirical Implications
Equity underwriting relationships (especially relationships with high reputation
underwriters) appear to be potentially valuable to client firms due to equity clients (i) being able
to share the benefit of an underwriter’s investment in information generation via reduced fees for
subsequent equity offerings; and (ii) having the ability to benefit from underwriter monitoring
and the underwriter’s investment in a network of institutional investors, who provide information
and also subscribe to the underwriter’s offerings. If so, the rupture of an existing equity
underwriting relationship could potentially be highly damaging for client firms, especially for
those relatively small and lesser known companies that rely heavily on their current underwriters
to access public stock markets and are unable to easily migrate to other underwriters.
Additionally, even if some companies are able to swiftly enlist new underwriters, this will
involve significant switching costs and any relationship-specific capital embodied in the prior
relationship will be forfeited. However, in an environment where a free market exists for
underwriter services and underwriter switching is common, the questions of what value client
firms obtain by staying in an underwriting relationship and what the sources of this value are, if
9
any, remain unresolved. The question of how this value might be affected by the emergence of
co-led underwriting (Shivdasani and Song (2010)) has also not been examined.
Debt underwriting relationships appear to be less valuable to client firms than equity
underwriting relationships. While debt offerings also entail information generation, there is no
evidence in the literature to suggest that client firms are able to share in the benefit of an
underwriter’s investment in information when it comes to subsequent offerings. Additionally,
since many debt securities have credit ratings, they are easier to price and place, making
underwriter certification and the book building process considerably less valuable to client firms.
Therefore, to the extent that Lehman debt underwriting relationships are valuable to clients, we
expect this value to be less than that for equity underwriting relationships.
While M&A advisory relationships involve intense information gathering prior to a deal,
there is no evidence to suggest that client acquirer firms derive persistent value from such a
relationship or that any relationship is not easily transferable to another investment bank. Much
of the private information collected during the M&A process pertains to the target firm and this
information largely dissipates after a deal is consummated. Additionally, serial acquirers are
invariably larger and would have a relatively easier time in transferring to another investment
bank for M&A advisory services.
If analyst coverage relationships are analyst-specific rather than bank-specific as
suggested by Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm (2006) and Clarke et al. (2007), any value that is
embedded in the analyst-client relationship will simply be transferred to the analyst’s new
employers without diminishing the client firm’s market value. Finally, the value of any market
10
making provided by underwriters is short-lived, helping to stabilize an offering in the immediate
aftermath of an IPO but progressively becoming less important over the ensuing months.
Therefore, it seems unlikely that client firms would derive value from a long-term market-
making relationship.
Conditional on a relationship developed through the provision of investment banking
services having value, we expect cross-sectional variation in client losses around Lehman’s
bankruptcy to be related to the strength of the relationship and client characteristics. For equity
underwriting, we conjecture that the number of past equity deals with Lehman and Lehman’s
share of the client’s past common stock offerings could capture the strength of the relationship.
Additionally, the commonality in information used by investment banks across all underwriting
services for the same firm (equity, convertible debt, and straight debt) would suggest the
presence of economies of scope. If equity underwriting clients that use other underwriting
services receive some of this benefit, we would expect to see it reflected in the abnormal return.
Furthermore, any client lending facilities that involve Lehman as lead or participant lender would
add to the strength of the relationship. Finally, to the extent that Lehman’s ownership of the
client’s shares is an indicator of a stronger relationship (Ljungqvist and Wilhelm (2003) and
Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm (2006)), a negative relation is implied between the client’s
abnormal returns and Lehman’s ownership of the client’s shares. Aside from this relationship-
based interpretation, Lehman’s failure may have also disproportionately affected clients in which
it owned shares due to a supply-side effect. If Lehman’s bankruptcy triggered the sale of its
11
clients’ shares, either voluntarily or as a result of forced liquidation during the impending
bankruptcy process, then a more negative reaction among such firms should be observed.
Regarding client characteristics, we hypothesize that clients with greater immediate need
for external capital will be more adversely affected by the loss of an underwriting relationship.
Specifically, we expect firms with less financial slack and firms in greater financial distress to
have greater need for external capital and therefore we expect such firms to suffer greater losses
in response to Lehman’s bankruptcy. Finally, since smaller and younger firms generally have
less established reputations in financial markets, the information production role of an
intermediary is more important to them relative to larger, more established firms (Diamond
(1991)), and hence they should be more adversely affected by Lehman’s collapse.
II. Data and Methodology
A. Equity Underwriting
We use the Securities Data Corporation (SDC) Global New Issues database to identify
firms that employed Lehman Brothers as the lead or co-lead underwriter on a public offering of
common stock in the U.S. market during the 10 years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy
(September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008).
6
We restrict the sample to U.S. firms in CRSP and
Compustat with publicly traded common stock (CRSP share codes of 10 or 11) at the time of the
bankruptcy announcement. We exclude utilities (two-digit SIC code 49) because their financing
decisions are highly regulated. The Lehman bankruptcy also triggered a wave of creditor claims,
overwhelmingly from other financial firms and arising largely from debt and OTC derivatives
12
counterparty claims.
7
Thus, we also exclude all financial (one-digit SIC code 6) firms from our
analyses to prevent this purely financial counterparty exposure from obscuring the impact of
Lehman’s bankruptcy on its corporate finance clients.
For our event study, we identify September 15, 2008 as Day 0 because it was the first day
on which the market could react to the bankruptcy announcement. For the purpose of estimating
abnormal stock returns during the event period, we use a 260-day estimation period (Day -290 to
Day -31), and we require that firms have nonmissing returns on at least 100 days during this
estimation period and nonmissing returns on all days during the period Day -5 to Day +5.
Imposing these restrictions yields an initial sample of 199 industrial (i.e., nonfinancial, non-
utility) firms that employed Lehman as a lead underwriter on at least one common stock offering
during the 10 years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy.
In addition to excluding financial firms, we also screen the industrial firms in our initial
sample for material derivatives and other financial exposure to Lehman. Since the SEC requires
a firm to file an 8-K report when an event triggers a material change in the firm’s financial
condition, we search the SEC’s EDGAR system for 8-K reports filed by all our sample firms
between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 that describe derivatives counterparty
relationships or exposure to securities issued by Lehman. We also search quarterly (10-Q) and
annual (10-K) reports filed between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 for disclosure of
derivatives counterparty relationships with Lehman. We identify and drop 15 firms from the
sample, yielding a final sample of 184 equity underwriting clients. As an added check, we verify
that our sample does not contain firms that had material claims against Lehman in the
13
aforementioned bankruptcy case docket. We use this same screening procedure to eliminate
firms with material exposure to Lehman in all samples discussed in subsequent portions of the
paper. While our results are substantively unchanged regardless of whether we apply these
screens, the results we report pertain to these screened samples. Using SEC filings and Loan
Pricing Corporation’s (LPC) Dealscan database, we also identify 42 firms in our sample for
which Lehman was a lender in one or more of their credit facilities. In addition to verifying the
robustness of our findings when these firms are excluded from our analysis, we control for
lending relationships with Lehman in all our cross-sectional regressions.
Since Lehman’s collapse had an adverse impact on the investment banking industry and
may have signaled that it would be relatively more costly to issue equity in the near future, we
conjecture that the broader population of equity issuers may also have been abnormally affected
by Lehman’s collapse. We investigate this possibility by computing abnormal returns earned by
clients of similarly positioned investment banks around the time of Lehman’s bankruptcy. We
identify banks with industry status similar to that of Lehman using the two underwriter
reputation metrics commonly employed in the literature – underwriting market share (Megginson
and Weiss (1991)) and reputation ranking (Carter and Manaster (1990)).
8
We first identify all
banks with an updated (2005 to 2007) Carter-Manaster ranking that is no more than one point
lower or one point higher than that of Lehman. We then pick the 10 underwriters from this pool
of banks that survive to September 14, 2008 and that are closest (according to difference in
percentage points) to Lehman in 2007 U.S. common stock underwriting market share. These 10
banks are Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citibank, UBS, Credit
14
Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Wachovia. We identify firms that employed at
least one of these banks but did not employ Lehman as a lead underwriter in a public common
stock offering during the 10 years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy, yielding an initial sample of
963 firms. After searching these firms’ SEC filings following the procedure outlined above, we
eliminate 17 firms with material financial exposure to Lehman, leading to a final sample of 946
firms.
B. Debt Underwriting, M&A Advising, Market Making, and Analyst Coverage
In addition to equity underwriting, we also examine the effect of Lehman’s collapse on
firms that received other services from Lehman, including debt underwriting, M&A advising,
market making, and analyst coverage. We do so using samples that include all industrial firms
that receive the particular service of interest from Lehman, constructed using the same
restrictions regarding SIC codes and available CRSP/Compustat data as those used to construct
the sample of equity underwriting clients.
We identify an initial sample of 61 industrial firms that employed Lehman as an
underwriter in at least one public straight debt offering during the 10-year period prior to
Lehman’s bankruptcy. Screening for firms with material financial exposure to Lehman
eliminates eight companies, yielding a final sample of 53 firms. Next, we construct an initial
sample of 10 firms that used Lehman as an underwriter for at least one public convertible debt
offering during the sample period. After screening for firms with material financial exposure to
Lehman, the final sample of convertible debt underwriting clients consists of seven firms. As
with equity underwriting, these samples are restricted to offerings made in the U.S. market.
15
We use the SDC Mergers and Acquisitions database to identify an initial sample of 94
acquiring firms that employed Lehman as a financial advisor in at least one completed
acquisition of a U.S. target during the 10 years prior to Lehman’s bankruptcy. Removing firms
with material financial exposure to Lehman reduces the final sample to 87 firms.
We use the NYSE’s Post and Panel File to identify 158 NYSE firms for whom Lehman
was the specialist at the time of the bankruptcy. This initial sample is reduced to 151 firms once
companies with material exposure to Lehman are removed.
We use the Thomson I/B/E/S Detail History database to identify companies that were
covered by an analyst from Lehman Brothers just prior to its bankruptcy.
9
We define a firm as
receiving coverage if an analyst from Lehman made at least one earnings forecast in either the
firm’s current fiscal quarter or last fiscal quarter. The initial sample of 659 firms is reduced to
633 companies after screening for material exposure to Lehman.
C. Measures of Investment Bank-Client Relationship Strength and Client Characteristics
This subsection describes measures of the strength of a client’s relationship to Lehman
and other client characteristics that we use as independent variables in our cross-sectional
regressions pertaining to equity underwriting clients.
10
We employ several measures of the
strength of Lehman’s investment banking relationships with equity underwriting clients. Our first
proxy for relationship strength is the total number of common stock offerings underwritten by
Lehman during our sample period. Since this variable does not capture the client’s reliance on
Lehman relative to other banks, we also employ the number of a client’s equity offerings
underwritten by Lehman divided by the total number of the client’s equity offerings over the
16
prior 10 years as a measure of the client’s loyalty to Lehman in common stock deals, which we
call Lehman’s share of the client’s common stock offerings. Because our aim is to capture the
client’s degree of exclusivity or loyalty to Lehman relative to other banks, this variable is
constructed such that, for offerings with n lead underwriters, Lehman is credited with 1/n share
of that offering. This variable ranges between zero and one, with one indicating that the firm
dealt exclusively with Lehman in its equity offerings. Additionally, we employ an underwriting
relationship scope index as our third proxy for relationship strength, which would also reflect
any economies of scope in underwriting captured by the client. This variable receives one point
for each of the three underwriting services that a firm can receive (equity, straight debt, and
convertible debt) and therefore ranges from one to three for equity underwriting clients.
As noted previously, Ljungqvist and Wilhelm (2003) and Ljungqvist, Marston, and
Wilhelm (2006) conjecture that an investment bank holding an equity stake in the client may
serve as a means of “cementing” a relationship. Following Ljungqvist, Marston, and Wilhelm
(2006), we use the CDA/Spectrum database on institutional 13f holdings to identify clients in
which Lehman held common shares at the time of the bankruptcy. Since Lehman was a large
financial institution with multiple subsidiaries that could potentially own shares, we use
Lehman’s 10-K filing for fiscal year 2007 to identify subsidiaries of Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. (the ultimate parent company of all Lehman Brothers entities). We then search the SEC’s
EDGAR database for 13f filings by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) and its subsidiaries,
and find 13f filings by two Lehman Brothers entities: LBHI and Neuberger Berman LLC, part of
Lehman’s asset management arm.
11
We construct two variables that measure the proportion of
17
the client firm’s outstanding shares owned by LBHI and Neuberger Berman. We regress
abnormal returns on these two variables to determine whether clients with larger proportions of
shares owned by Lehman Brothers entities were more adversely affected by Lehman’s
collapse.
12
Lehman Brothers acted as a lead lender or participant lender in many syndicated credit
facilities. We use facility-level data from LPC’s Dealscan database along with SEC filings to
identify firms in our sample that had credit facilities from Lehman at the time of the bankruptcy.
Among Lehman’s equity underwriting clients, 42 firms had active credit facilities in which
Lehman was a member of the lending syndicate. For 14 of these firms, Lehman was the lead
lender (administrative agent) in at least one of the firm’s facilities. In our cross-sectional
analyses, we use two dummy variables that control for Lehman’s role as lender. The first equals
one if Lehman was a lead lender in at least one of the firm’s facilities and zero otherwise. The
second equals one if Lehman was not a lead lender but was a participating lender in at least one
of the firm’s facilities and zero otherwise.
We expect firms with greater immediate need for external capital to be more adversely
affected by the failure of their equity underwriter. Since firms with greater financial slack should
have less immediate need for external financing, we use net market leverage and cash-to-assets
to test this hypothesis. Financially distressed firms should have greater need for external equity
capital and so we also use Altman’s (1968) Z-score. As additional determinants, we include firm
size and age. We expect larger and older firms to have more established reputations in financial
markets so that the information production role of an underwriter is less important to them.
18
Finally, we include a dummy variable that takes the value of one if the client shelf
registered (Rule 415) an equity offering during the two years preceding Lehman’s bankruptcy
and did not take any of the registered equity off the shelf before September 14, 2008, and zero
otherwise. This variable aims to capture firms that were likely to issue equity in the near future.
D. Estimating Abnormal Returns
We estimate daily abnormal stock returns using the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor
model, which includes the Fama and French (1993) factors and the Carhart (1997) momentum
factor:
, , , i t i i M t i t i t i t i t
R R s SMB h HML uUMD ? ? ? = + + + + +
,
(1)
where on Day t, R
i,t
is the return to firm i, R
M,t
is the return to the value-weighted CRSP market
index, and SMB
t
, HML
t
, and UMD
t
are the returns to the Small-Minus-Big (SMB), High-Minus-
Low (HML), and Up-Minus-Down (UMD) portfolios meant to capture size, book-to-market, and
return momentum effects, respectively.
13
For each firm in the sample, we estimate the parameters
in the four-factor model over a 260-day pre-event period (Day -290 to Day -31). Daily abnormal
returns during the event period are calculated in the usual manner by subtracting the expected
return implied by the four-factor model from the firm’s realized return.
While most short-term event studies typically employ a simpler return generating model
such as the market model, we choose the four-factor model as our primary method due to the
unusual nature of the event in our study. Lehman’s collapse had a system-wide impact, as
evidenced by the fact that the market experienced a one-day return of nearly -5% on September
15. In addition, the SMB portfolio gained 1.4%, indicating that larger firms were more adversely
19
affected than smaller firms, the HML portfolio lost over 2%, indicating that value stocks suffered
greater losses than growth stocks, and the UMD portfolio gained nearly 3%, indicating that past
losers were more adversely affected than past winners. The aim of our study is to isolate the
effect of Lehman’s collapse on Lehman clients after filtering out systematic effects. Since many
of our samples could be considered nonrandom, especially with respect to size or book-to-
market,
14
we consider the four-factor model more robust than the market model because it
attempts to control for systematic size, value, and momentum effects, which were significant
during our event period. Using the four-factor model therefore reduces the likelihood that our
results may be influenced by anomalous factors, such as a small firm effect.
15
Nonetheless, in
some of our analyses we also report abnormal returns estimated with the three-factor model of
Fama and French (1993), the market model, and two procedures that match each sample firm to a
nonsample firm according to (i) size and book-to-market ratio and (ii) industry and size. In these
matching procedures, the abnormal return is computed as the raw return of the sample firm
minus the raw return of the matched nonsample firm. For size and book-to-market matching,
matched firms are selected such that the sum of the absolute percentage differences between the
sizes (market value of equity) and book-to-market ratios of the sample firm and matched firm is
minimized. For industry and size matching, matches are selected such that the matched firm is in
the same Fama-French 49 industry, and the difference in market value of equity between the
sample firm and matched firm is minimized.
Because all firms in our analysis have the same event period in calendar time, some
degree of cross-sectional correlation in abnormal returns across firms is expected and
20
conventional test-statistics will be biased. We therefore test for statistical significance using the
test statistic proposed by Kolari and Pynnönen (2010), which is a modified version of the widely
used t-statistic of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen (BMP) (1991). Kolari and Pynnönen modify
the BMP t-statistic to account for contemporaneous correlation in abnormal returns across
sample firms. The modification is a multiplier applied to the standard error that is increasing with
the average correlation of abnormal returns across stocks in the sample. If correlations tend to be
positive on average (as they are in all our samples), the modification will result in a more
conservative (closer to zero) test statistic. This statistic is particularly applicable in our setting
because it is well specified when the variance of abnormal returns is higher during the event
period than in the estimation period and when abnormal returns are cross-sectionally correlated.
III. Results
A. The Collapse of Lehman Brothers
Table I documents the significant events surrounding the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers
and Lehman’s stock price performance. On Sunday evening, September 14, 2008, Lehman
announced that it would file for protection in U.S. bankruptcy court. The following day (Day 0),
Lehman’s shareholders experienced a raw return of -94%, which came on the heels of significant
losses during the week prior to the bankruptcy announcement (September 8 to September 12;
Days -5 to -1). During this period, Lehman announced a $3.9 billion loss and a dividend cut, the
major rating agencies put Lehman’s credit rating on “watch,” and a deal involving a potential
investment in Lehman by Korea Development Bank reportedly fell through. After Lehman filed
21
for bankruptcy, Barclays announced on September 16 that it had reached an agreement to
purchase Lehman’s North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, and the
following day Lehman was delisted from the NYSE.
**** Insert Table I about here ****
B. The Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity Underwriting Clients to Lehman’s
Bankruptcy
Table I also reports abnormal returns for Lehman’s equity underwriting clients using the
Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model. Client firms experienced a statistically significant mean
four-factor adjusted abnormal return of -1.48% (equally weighted) or -1.76% (value-weighted)
on Day 0.
16
In addition, Lehman’s equity underwriting clients earned a significant negative
abnormal return on the day the major rating agencies put Lehman’s credit rating on “watch” and
a deal involving a potential investment in Lehman by Korea Development Bank reportedly fell
through (Day -4). Over the seven-day period (-5,+1) that includes the week prior to the
bankruptcy announcement, Panel A of Table II shows that Lehman’s equity underwriting clients
experienced a sharp -4.85% cumulative abnormal return (CAR) that is highly significant both
economically and statistically. The mean (0,+1) CAR for this sample is also negative and
statistically significant. Panel A of Table II also reports mean CARs for clients of banks with
industry status similar to that of Lehman, using the four-factor model. Clients of Lehman’s
industry peers experienced a smaller (in magnitude) and statistically insignificant mean four-
factor adjusted abnormal return of -0.66% on Day 0. The -0.82% difference in mean abnormal
returns on Day 0 between Lehman clients and clients of similar banks is statistically significant,
22
indicating that Lehman’s bankruptcy had a relatively more adverse effect on Lehman clients. The
same conclusion obtains when the mean (-5,+1) CARs are compared across the two groups.
**** Insert Table II about here ****
Panels B and C of Table II report CARs estimated with the Fama and French (1993)
three-factor model and the market model, respectively. The results based on the Fama-French
three-factor model (Panel B) are consistent with those from the four-factor model. Regarding the
reaction of Lehman clients, results based on the market model (Panel C) are weaker than those
from the four-factor and three-factor models. The mean market model-adjusted abnormal return
on Day 0 for Lehman clients is -0.18%, which is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
However, the (-5,+1) mean CAR for Lehman clients of -4.26% is significant both economically
and statistically. In addition, the differences in mean market model CARs over the (0,0), (0,+1),
and (-5,+1) windows between Lehman clients and clients of similar banks are again significantly
negative, indicating that Lehman clients suffered significantly greater losses. In summary, the
evidence from the factor models and market model in Table II indicates strongly that Lehman’s
equity underwriting clients respond more negatively to the announcement of Lehman’s
bankruptcy than do clients of Lehman’s industry peers.
C. Robustness Checks
A potential concern with the factor and market model abnormal returns is that market
betas could have shifted up during the event period, which would render the abnormal returns we
document negatively biased. Thus, we carry out multiple tests to address the possibility that our
results may be affected by shifting market betas around the period of our study. We first conduct
23
tests of parameter stability as discussed in Binder (1985), Kane and Unal (1988), MacKinlay
(1997), and Coutts, Roberts, and Mills (1997) by modifying the market model to allow beta to
change during the event window, enabling an event study of whether systematic risk shifted. The
framework we use employs a continuous time series of daily returns and allows for beta to differ
over three different regimes corresponding to the (-290,-31) period (the estimation period used in
our baseline approach of estimating abnormal returns), the (-30,-6) period, and an event period
that runs from Day -5 to some post-event day. We try both short and long intervals for the event
period, where the ending dates range from two weeks (Day +10) to 10 weeks (Day +50) after
Lehman’s bankruptcy, since it is not clear whether shifts in beta around the bankruptcy would be
relatively long-lived or transitory. However, regardless of the period, we find no evidence of a
positive and significant shift in the average beta (relative to the (-290,-31) period) for the pre-
event period (-30,-6) or any of the event periods that follow. The results are available in the
Internet Appendix.
As a further robustness check against shifting betas, we compute abnormal returns with
procedures that match sample firms to nonsample firms according to characteristics that might be
correlated with the time-series evolution in systematic risk. In these analyses, abnormal returns
are computed as the raw return of the sample firm minus the raw return of a matched firm. Some
obvious starting points for matching criteria are industry, size, and book-to-market ratio. These
choices are motivated by literature that provides evidence of cross-sectional correlations between
these characteristics and market beta (Fama and French (1993, 1997)) and empirical asset pricing
literature that concludes that these factors are important in explaining returns (Fama and French
24
(1992) and Lyon, Barber, and Tsai (1999)). Firms in the same industry with similar size, for
example, might be subject to similar shifts in systematic risk around Lehman’s bankruptcy. An
added advantage of matching on characteristics such as industry and size is that firms similar
along these dimensions may also be sensitive to the same unobservable risk factors that may not
be captured by the factor models. In Panels D and E of Table II, we report abnormal returns
based on size and book-to-market matching and industry and size matching. With both of these
procedures we continue to find significantly negative abnormal returns among Lehman’s equity
underwriting clients around Lehman’s bankruptcy announcement.
An alternative explanation for the negative share price reaction among Lehman’s equity
underwriting clients could be the loss of a lending relationship. As previously mentioned, 42 of
Lehman’s equity underwriting clients had active credit facilities in which Lehman was a member
of the lending syndicate. To assess whether these firms drive our results, we repeat the event
study in Table II after dropping these firms. For the remaining 142 firms, the mean (-5,+1), (0,0),
and (0,+1) CARs based on the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model are -4.47%, -1.48%, and -
1.65%, which are all statistically and economically significant. Thus, our conclusions persist
even after eliminating firms for which Lehman was a lender.
Another alternative explanation for the negative reaction among sample firms could be
implied lower liquidity due to the loss of a primary market maker. Thirteen Lehman equity
underwriting clients used Lehman as their NYSE specialist, and Lehman was a registered dealer
for all 104 NASDAQ firms in the sample. In order to assess the magnitude of Lehman’s market-
making role for sample NASDAQ firms, we obtain data directly from NASDAQ on the number
25
of shares traded by Lehman as a registered dealer in the months prior to the bankruptcy. These
data were publicly available to investors at the time of the bankruptcy. For each stock, we
compute Lehman’s market-making market share as the number of shares traded by Lehman as a
dealer during the three months prior to the bankruptcy scaled by the total number of shares
traded during the same period (as in Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2002)). For NASDAQ firms,
the average Lehman market share as a market maker is 6% and the maximum is only 16.6%.
According to Ellis, Michaely, and O’Hara (2002), the dominant market maker typically has a
market share in excess of 50%. Thus, Lehman played only a modest role as a NASDAQ market
maker for sample firms. Nonetheless, for robustness, we examine how our results are affected if
we eliminate all NASDAQ firms and firms for which Lehman was the specialist. The remaining
firms are all listed on the NYSE, and investors would have been aware that Lehman was not a
key market maker for these firms since the identity of the specialist is in the public domain. For
these 68 firms, the mean Fama-French-Carhart CARs over the (-5,+1), (0,0), and (0,+1) periods
are -5.7%, -3.8%, and -2.3%, respectively, and all are statistically significant. Thus, our results
continue to hold when we focus on firms for which the market would have known with certainty
that Lehman was not a key market maker.
17
D. Debt Underwriting, M&A Advising, Market Making, and Analyst coverage
Table III explores the market reaction of Lehman’s other client groups. We report four-
factor model-adjusted abnormal returns of firms that received debt underwriting services, M&A
advising services, NYSE specialist services, and analyst coverage from Lehman. Additionally,
we divide each of these groups into two subsamples: firms that also received common stock
26
underwriting services from Lehman and firms that did not. We report Fama-French-Carhart four-
factor CARs for both subsamples. Panel A of Table III reports mean CARs for all 53 firms that
employed Lehman as a lead underwriter for a public straight debt offering. We do not find
statistically significant CARs over the (-5,+1), (0,0), and (0,+1) windows. Twelve of the straight
debt clients were also equity underwriting customers. Consistent with our previous results for
equity underwriting, we find some evidence of a negative reaction among this subsample of debt
clients, as the mean CARs over the (0,+1), and (-5,+1) windows are -4.08% and -7.29%,
respectively, both statistically significant at the 10% level or better. In contrast, the 41 straight
debt clients that did not also receive equity underwriting services from Lehman show no
evidence of a significant negative reaction to Lehman’s collapse. Overall, our event study
analysis provides no compelling evidence that the rupture of straight debt underwriting
relationships precipitated by Lehman’s collapse adversely affected straight debt underwriting
clients.
**** Insert Table III about here ****
In Panel B of Table III, we find no evidence of a significantly negative reaction among
convertible debt underwriting clients. While the event period abnormal returns for these seven
firms tend to be large in magnitude, none are significantly negative, and it would be difficult to
draw strong conclusions in any case due to the very small number of firms in this sample. Panel
C of Table III reports the stock price reaction of Lehman’s M&A clients. For all 87 firms, there
is no evidence of a negative mean stock price reaction, as the mean CARs over the (0,0), (0,+1),
and (-5,+1) windows are all (insignificantly) positive. Splitting this sample according to whether
27
the firm also received equity underwriting services does not yield significantly negative
abnormal returns for either subsample. Overall, we find no evidence that the M&A advisory
relationship has enduring value for Lehman’s M&A clients.
Panel D of Table III documents the stock price reaction of firms for which Lehman was
the NYSE specialist. For all 151 firms, there is no evidence of significantly negative abnormal
returns over the (0,0), (0,+1), and (-5,+1) windows. Splitting this sample according to whether
the firm received equity underwriting services does not yield significantly negative abnormal
returns for either group. Thus, we conclude that Lehman’s collapse had no significant adverse
impact on Lehman’s NYSE market-making clients.
In Panel E of Table III, we report CARs for firms that received analyst coverage from
Lehman just prior to Lehman’s bankruptcy. For all 633 firms, we find no evidence of a negative
mean stock price reaction. For the 122 firms that received analyst coverage and equity
underwriting services, the mean (0,0) and (-5,+1) CARs of -0.99% and -4.20%, respectively, are
significant at the 10% level or better. However, this finding appears to be driven by the equity
underwriting relationship since we do not find significant abnormal returns during the same
periods for the 511 firms that did not receive equity underwriting services from Lehman.
E. Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity Underwriting
Clients to Lehman’s Bankruptcy
We have reported strong evidence that, on average, Lehman’s equity underwriting clients
reacted negatively to Lehman’s collapse. In this section, we investigate the cross-sectional
28
determinants of this market reaction by regressing two-day CARs on measures of the strength of
the client’s relationship with Lehman and on various client characteristics.
Table IV reports the results of our cross-sectional analysis. Since all the firms in the
sample have the same event period in calendar time, we use the portfolio weighted least squares
(PWLS) approach of Chandra and Balachandran (1992), which produces unbiased estimates of
the regression coefficient standard errors when abnormal returns over the event window are
heteroskedastic and correlated across firms.
18
We estimate the PWLS regressions over the period
Day -290 to Day +10 using the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model and a two-day event
window (Days 0 and +1).
**** Insert Table IV about here ****
We find evidence that the stock price reaction to Lehman’s collapse is negatively related
to the number of stock offerings that the client conducted with Lehman. The coefficient
estimates on the natural logarithm of one plus the number of offerings underwritten by Lehman
are all negative and significant at the 10% level. To the extent that multiple offerings with
Lehman indicate a stronger relationship, this finding supports the hypothesis that an issuer with a
stronger relationship with its underwriter should lose more value when its underwriter fails. In
addition, we find that the client’s stock price reaction is negatively related to Lehman’s share of
the client’s common stock offering, although not significantly.
19
We find that equity underwriting clients lose more value if Lehman is also the lead lender
in one of the firm’s syndicated credit facilities. In all specifications, the dummy variable that
captures this effect is negative and significant. However, we do not find greater losses associated
29
with Lehman acting merely as a participant lender to the firm, as the dummy variable capturing
this effect is statistically insignificant.
We find strong evidence that equity underwriting clients that also use Lehman for
underwriting straight debt and convertible debt are especially adversely affected. In all
specifications, the underwriting relationship scope index is negative and statistically significant.
Regarding ownership stakes in clients, we find that client abnormal returns are not significantly
related to the proportion of the client’s shares owned by LBHI or the proportion of shares owned
by Neuberger Berman LLC, although the coefficient estimates are negative as expected.
The client’s stock price reaction is positively related to client size and age. In
specifications (1), (2), (3), and (5), the client’s two-day CAR is positively related to the natural
log of the client’s market capitalization of equity at the 10% level or better. In specifications (2)
through (5), the coefficients on the natural log of the client’s age are positive and significant at
the 10% level or better. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that larger and older
clients should be less adversely affected by the failure of their underwriter. On the other hand,
the shelf registration dummy is always positive, but also always insignificant.
Firms with less cash and firms with higher likelihoods of financial distress respond more
negatively to Lehman’s collapse. Two-day CARs are positively related to the cash-to-assets ratio
at the 5% level in specifications (3) and (5) and positively related to Z-score at the 5% level in
specification (4). This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that firms with greater
immediate need for external capital respond more negatively to the failure of their underwriter.
30
Economically, the factors with the largest effects in Table IV are the scope of the firm’s
underwriting relationship with Lehman, whether Lehman also acted as a lead lender, and the
firm’s cash holdings. The coefficient estimates on the underwriting relationship scope index
imply that each additional underwriting service (straight debt or convertible debt) received from
Lehman decreases the (0,+1) CAR by about 2.5 percentage points. Lehman acting as the firm’s
lead lender also reduces the CAR by roughly 2.5 percentage points. Regarding the cash-to-assets
ratio, the estimated coefficients indicate that moving from the sample’s 75
th
percentile (cash-to-
assets = 0.464) to the 25
th
percentile (cash-to-assets = 0.036) is associated with a decrease in the
(0,+1) CAR of 1.57 percentage points.
In light of these cross-sectional differences, we verify that our event study results in
Table II are not driven by specific subsamples of Lehman equity underwriting clients (e.g.,
frequent issuers, newly IPO firms, financially constrained firms, etc.) by repeating our previous
tests after excluding such firms. We continue to find negative mean event period CARs that are
statistically significant.
F. Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Debt Underwriting,
M&A, NYSE Market Making, and Analyst Coverage Clients
We investigate the cross-section of abnormal returns earned by Lehman’s debt
underwriting, M&A Advisory, NYSE specialist, and analyst coverage clients. These findings are
summarized below and are presented in the Internet Appendix.
Since there are so few convertible debt clients, we include them with the straight debt
clients and use a dummy to differentiate convertible debt underwriting. We find that a debt
31
underwriting client’s two-day CAR is significantly and negatively related to the proportion of the
client’s shares owned by both Neuberger Berman LLC and LBHI, and the scope of the firm’s
underwriting relationship with Lehman. It is positively and significantly related to the firm’s
cash-to-assets ratio. Two-day CARs earned by debt underwriting clients are not significantly
related to the number of debt offerings underwritten by Lehman, Lehman’s share of the client’s
debt offerings, whether the firm recently shelf registered a debt offering, firm size, firm age, Z-
score, net market leverage, or whether Lehman was a lead lender or participant lender to the
firm.
Performing a cross-sectional analysis of Lehman’s M&A clients reveals that a client’s
stock price reaction is negatively related to the natural logarithm of one plus the number of deals
advised by Lehman (at the 10% level) and whether Lehman is the firm’s lead lender (at the 5%
level). It is also positively and significantly related to the firm’s Z-score at the 10% level in two
of three specifications. An M&A client’s reaction is not significantly related to Lehman’s share
of the client’s M&A deals, whether Lehman is a participant lender to the firm, the proportion of
the client’s shares owned by Lehman entities, firm size, firm age, or whether the firm had a
pending M&A deal with Lehman as the advisor.
Examining the cross-section of abnormal returns earned by firms for which Lehman was
the specialist on the NYSE reveals weak evidence that stock market liquidity is a determinant of
these firms’ responses to the collapse of their specialist. The proportion of shares owned by non-
Lehman institutions is significantly and positively related to two-day CARs in one of two
specifications. If one considers institutional ownership as a proxy for liquidity, then the
32
interpretation is that firms with less liquid stock respond more negatively. Share turnover,
however, is not significantly related to abnormal returns. As with equity underwriting clients and
M&A clients, the abnormal returns earned by these firms are also significantly and positively
related to the firm’s Z-score at the 10% level or better. Two-day CARs are not significantly
related to firm size, firm age, whether Lehman was a lead or participant lender, or the proportion
of the firm’s shares owned by Lehman entities.
For firms that receive analyst coverage from Lehman just prior to the bankruptcy, we find
no evidence that firms followed by fewer non-Lehman analysts react more negatively to
Lehman’s collapse, as the natural logarithm of the number of analysts covering the firm that are
not employed by Lehman is not a significant determinant of the firm’s stock price reaction. Kelly
and Ljungqvist (2007) find that, in the quarter after a firm loses analyst coverage from a broker,
institutions are abnormally large net buyers of the firm’s stock, implying that retail investors are
net sellers. They interpret this result as indicative that retail investors are more dependent on sell-
side analyst research and that a loss of coverage may reduce their valuation and demand for the
stock. Consistent with Kelly and Ljungqvist (2007), we find that the proportion of shares owned
by non-Lehman institutions is significantly and positively related to the two-day CAR, indicating
that firms with low institutional ownership that receive analyst coverage from Lehman lose more
value around the bankruptcy. There is some evidence that younger firms are more adversely
affected, as the natural log of firm age is positive and significant at the 10% level, and also that
the share price reaction of firms receiving analyst coverage from Lehman is positively and
significantly related to the firm’s Z-score.
33
G. Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity
Underwriting, Debt Underwriting, M&A, NYSE Market Making, and Analyst Coverage
Clients
Finally, we conduct a pooled cross-sectional analysis of (0,+1) CARs earned by all firms
that received equity underwriting, debt underwriting, M&A advising, NYSE market making, or
analyst coverage services from Lehman. This analysis is presented in Table V. For each client
group, we include a dummy variable that takes the value of one if the client received that specific
service from Lehman and zero otherwise. We also include as independent variables firm-specific
characteristics (size, age, and Z-score), dummies for whether Lehman was a lead or participant
lender, and ownership of the firm’s shares by LBHI and Neuberger Berman LLC. Event study
analyses suggest that equity underwriting is the principal source of value for clients in
investment banking relationships. Our aim is to re-examine that conclusion in a multivariate
analysis that disentangles the marginal effects of each type of client-bank relationship. If our
conclusion is robust, we would expect to observe a negative and significant coefficient for equity
underwriting, and this is exactly what we find. The coefficient on the dummy variable that equals
one if the firm received equity underwriting services from Lehman and zero otherwise is
negative and significant at the 1% level in specifications (1) and (2). The interpretation is that
clients that received equity underwriting services reacted more negatively than clients that did
not receive equity underwriting services, on average. In specifications (5) through (7), we use the
natural logarithm of one plus the number of equity offerings underwritten by Lehman in lieu of a
dummy and reach the same conclusion. In contrast, the coefficients on the dummies that
34
correspond to receipt of straight debt underwriting and convertible debt underwriting are
statistically insignificant in specifications (1) and (2) as are the coefficients on the natural
logarithms of one plus the number of straight debt offerings and one plus the number of
convertible debt offerings.
**** Insert Table V about here ****
The dummy for receipt of NYSE specialist service is also insignificant in all
specifications. The analyst coverage dummy is positive and significant at the 10% level or better
in two of seven specifications, indicating that firms that received analyst coverage were less
adversely affected by the collapse of Lehman than the average client not receiving analyst
coverage. The dummy for receipt of M&A advisory services is positive and statistically
significant in specifications (1) and (2), as is the natural log of one plus the number of M&A
deals advised by Lehman in specifications (5) through (7). While this finding suggests that
Lehman M&A clients fared relatively better than the average Lehman client that did not receive
M&A advisory services, it should not be construed as evidence of a positive reaction by M&A
clients to the Lehman collapse. Indeed, the event study results reported in Panel C of Table III
show an insignificant reaction by the 87 Lehman M&A clients to the collapse. As in Table IV,
we find evidence that clients that used Lehman for multiple underwriting services (equity, debt,
and convertible debt) were especially adversely affected. The underwriting relationship scope
index is negative in all three specifications in which it is included although statistically
significant in only two of them. These results buttress our conclusion that equity underwriting is
the principal source of value for clients in investment banking relationships.
35
IV. Conclusions
The unexpected collapse of Lehman Brothers provides a unique natural experiment to
find answers to two key questions in the corporate finance and banking literatures: (1) Are
investment banking relationships valuable for client firms and, if so, (2) what are the value
drivers of these relationships? We examine the impact of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy on
different categories of the bank’s publicly traded clients by studying how their stock prices
reacted to the collapse. We find that companies that used Lehman as lead underwriter for one or
more equity offerings during the 10 years leading up to September 2008 suffered economically
and statistically significant negative abnormal returns when Lehman Brothers declared
bankruptcy. Based on Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model-adjusted abnormal returns, the
184 equity underwriting clients that we study lost 4.85% of their market value, on average, over
a seven-day period spanning the five trading days prior to and the first and second trading days
immediately following Lehman’s bankruptcy, amounting to approximately $23 billion in
aggregate risk-adjusted losses. These losses were significantly larger than for firms that were
equity underwriting clients of other large investment banks, and were especially severe for
companies that were smaller, younger, and more financially constrained, as well as companies
that had undertaken a larger number of Lehman-led equity offerings or equity offerings in
conjunction with debt offerings. No other client groups were significantly adversely affected by
Lehman’s collapse. These results show that Lehman’s collapse did, in fact, impose material
36
losses on its customers, but for the most part these losses were confined to those companies that
employed Lehman for equity underwriting.
Our findings also provide insights into the “too-big-to-fail” (TBTF) rationale for the
government rescue of financial institutions. While TBTF has traditionally been used as a
justification for the government rescue of commercial banks due to the systemic risk that their
failure would pose to the banking system, the TBTF rationale was extended to nonbanks when
the U.S. Federal Reserve orchestrated the 1998 rescue of Long-Term Capital Management,
whose failure threatened the financial markets. While the significant adverse effect of Lehman’s
bankruptcy on the financial markets in general and Lehman’s financial counterparties in
particular may have led the government to change its strategy toward allowing other large
nonbank financial institutions (such as AIG) to fail (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
(2010)), our findings identify another negative consequence of Lehman’s collapse that has been
hitherto overlooked.
37
Appendix: Variable Definitions
This appendix provides the definitions of all variables in the paper. Numbers in parentheses refer to the annual
Compustat item number. All Compustat items are for the firm’s most recent fiscal year prior to September 14,
2008.
Variable Definition
# of non-Lehman analysts Number of equity analysts in I/B/E/S not employed by Lehman during the
firm’s current fiscal quarter or last fiscal quarter (as of September 14,
2008) that made at least one earnings forecast during the same period.
# of common stock offerings
with Lehman
Number of public common stock offerings by the client lead underwritten
by Lehman during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008.
# of debt offerings with Lehman Number of public debt (straight and convertible) offerings by the client lead
underwritten by Lehman during September 14, 1998 to September 14,
2008.
# of M&A deals with Lehman Number of acquisitions by the firm of U.S. targets announced during
September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008 for which the firm employed
Lehman as a financial advisor.
Age Number of years elapsed between when the firm first appears in CRSP and
September 14, 2008.
Book-to-market Book value of common equity (#60) divided by market value of common
equity (#25*#199).
Cash-to-assets Cash and short-term investments (#1) scaled by the total assets (#6).
Debt shelf registration dummy
Dummy = 1 if the firm shelf registered (SEC Rule 415) a public debt
(straight or convertible) offering during September 14, 2006 to September
14, 2008 without taking any of the registered debt off the shelf during the
same period.
Equity shelf registration dummy
Dummy = 1 if the firm shelf registered (SEC Rule 415) a common stock
offering during September 14, 2006 to September 14, 2008 without taking
any of the registered equity off the shelf during the same period.
Lehman convertible debt
underwriting client
Dummy = 1 if the firm employed Lehman as a lead underwriter in a public
convertible debt offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14,
2008 and zero otherwise.
Lehman is lead lender Dummy = 1 if Lehman acted as the lead lender in at least one of the firm’s
syndicated credit facilities as of September 14, 2008.
Lehman is participant lender Dummy = 1 if Lehman was a lender in at least one of the firm’s active credit
facilities but was not a lead lender as of September 14, 2008.
Lehman equity underwriting
client
Dummy = 1 if the firm employed Lehman as a lead underwriter in at least
one public common stock offering during September 14, 1998 to
September 14, 2008.
Lehman M&A client Dummy = 1 if the firm was an acquirer in a completed acquisition of a U.S.
target for which Lehman served as an advisor during September 14, 1998
to September 14, 2008 and zero otherwise.
Lehman NYSE specialist Dummy = 1 if Lehman was the NYSE specialist for the firm’s stock as of
September 14, 2008 and zero otherwise.
38
Appendix-Continued
Variable Definition
Lehman’s share of client’s
common stock offerings
Number of client’s public common stock offerings credited to Lehman
divided by the total number of public common stock offerings by the client
during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. For offerings in which
Lehman was one of n lead underwriters, Lehman is credited with a 1/n
share of the offering.
Lehman’s share of client’s debt
offerings
Number of client’s public debt (straight and convertible) offerings credited
to Lehman divided by the total number of public debt offerings by the
client during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. For offerings in
which Lehman was one of n lead underwriters, Lehman is credited with a
1/n share of the offering.
Lehman’s share of client’s
M&A deals
Number of client’s completed acquisitions of U.S. targets credited to
Lehman divided by the total number of completed acquisitions of U.S.
targets by the firm during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. For
deals in which Lehman was one of n financial advisors to the firm,
Lehman is credited with a 1/n share of the deal.
Lehman straight debt
underwriting client
Dummy = 1 if the firm employed Lehman as a lead underwriter in a public
straight debt offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008
and zero otherwise.
Market cap Market value of common equity (#25*#199) in $ million.
Net market leverage Long-term debt (#9) plus short-term debt (#34) minus cash and short-term
investments (#1) divided by the market value of assets (#6-
#60+#25*#199).
Pending M&A deal with
Lehman
Dummy = 1 if Lehman advised the firm in an acquisition of a U.S. target
that was announced prior to September 14, 2008 and completed after
September 14, 2008 and zero otherwise.
Proportion of outstanding
shares owned by Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc.
Number of the firm’s common shares owned by Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. (LBHI) divided by the client's total number of outstanding shares as of
June 30, 2008. From Thomson CDS/Spectrum database on 13f Holdings
(available through WRDS).
Proportion of outstanding
shares owned by Neuberger
Berman LLC.
Number of the firm’s common shares owned by Neuberger Berman LLC
divided by the client's total number of outstanding shares as of June 30,
2008. From Thomson CDS/Spectrum database on 13f Holdings.
Proportion of outstanding
shares owned by non-Lehman
institutions
Number of the firm’s common shares owned by institutions required to
report holdings under SEC Rule 13f other than Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. and Neuberger Berman LLC as of June 30, 2008, divided by the
client's total outstanding shares. From Thomson CDS/Spectrum database
on 13f Holdings.
Share turnover Total number of shares traded during August 2008 divided by the total
number of shares outstanding.
39
Appendix-Continued
Variable Definition
Underwriting relationship scope
index
Index = 0 if the firm did not receive lead underwriting services from Lehman
for public common stock, straight debt, or convertible debt during
September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008; = 1 if the firm received one of
the three aforementioned services from Lehman; = 2 if the firm received
two of the three aforementioned underwriting services from Lehman; = 3 if
the firm received all three of the aforementioned services from Lehman.
Z-score From Altman (1968): Z = [3.3*EBIT(#178) + 1.0*sales(#12) + 1.4*retained
earnings(#36) + 1.2*working capital(#179)]/total assets(#6) + 0.6*market
cap(#25*#199)/total liabilities(#181).
40
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44
Table I
Events Surrounding Lehman’s Bankruptcy and Abnormal Returns
This table reports news and stock returns associated with events surrounding Lehman’s bankruptcy. The sample of “Lehman Equity Underwriting Clients” consists of 184
industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that used Lehman Brothers as a lead underwriter for at least one public common stock offering during the September 14, 1998 to
September 14, 2008 period. Daily abnormal returns (ARs) calculated with the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model and a 260-day estimation period (Day -290 to Day -
31). The “Financial Services Industry Daily Return” is the return to a market value-weighted portfolio containing all U.S. common stocks in CRSP with SIC codes between
6000 and 6411. Statistical significance levels of the mean abnormal return are based on the standardized cross-sectional t-statistic of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen
(1991) adjusted for cross-sectional correlation following Kolari and Pynnönen (2010). *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in
two-tailed tests.
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Equity
Underwriting Clients
(N=184)
Date
Event
Day
Closing
Stock
Price
Daily
Raw
Return
Mean
Daily AR
Value-
Weighted
Daily AR
S&P500
Daily
Return
Financial
Services
Industry
Daily
Return News
Aug. 29 -10 $16.09 1.4%
0.14% 0.09% -1.37% -1.37%
Sep.2 -9 $16.13 0.3% -0.42% -0.69% -0.41% -0.07% Korea Development Bank (KDB) CEO, Min Euoo-Sung, confirmed
rumors that KDB was considering a potential investment in Lehman.
Sep 3 -8 $16.94 5.0% 0.01% -0.93% -0.20% -0.40%
Sep. 4 -7 $15.17 -10.5% -0.35% -0.15% -2.99% -3.08%
Sep. 5 -6 $16.2 6.8% 0.02% 0.01% 0.44% -0.35%
Sep. 8 -5 $14.15 -12.7% -0.62% -1.11%** 2.05% 1.29%
Sep. 9 -4 $7.79 -45.0% -1.31%*** -1.90%*** -3.41% -2.32% Dow Jones Newswire reported that KDB put talks with Lehman on
hold. (2) S&P put Lehman's credit rating on negative "watch."
Sep. 10 -3 $7.25 -6.9% -0.17% -0.08% 0.61% 0.43% (1) Lehman announced an expected $3.9 billion loss and plans to sell
a majority stake in its investment management division, spin off real
estate assets, and cut its dividend. (2) Moody's put Lehman's credit
rating on "watch," saying it would be downgraded unless Lehman
could negotiate "a strategic transaction with a stronger financial
partner."
Sep. 11 -2 $4.22 -41.8% -0.70%* -0.19% 1.38% 1.32% The Wall Street Journal reported that Lehman spent the day shopping
itself to potential buyers, including Bank of America.
Sep. 12 -1 $3.65 -13.5% 0.02% 0.22% 0.21% 0.23%
45
Table I-Continued
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Equity
Underwriting Clients
(N=184)
Date
Event
Day
Closing
Stock
Price
Daily
Raw
Return
Mean
Daily AR
Value-
Weighted
Daily AR
S&P500
Daily
Return
Financial
Services
Industry
Daily
Return News
Sep. 13 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- (1) Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed, called a special
meeting to discuss Lehman's future and a possible emergency asset
liquidation. (2) Lehman reported that it had been talking with Bank of
America and Barclays for the company's possible sale.
Sep. 14 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Lehman announced that the company would file for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection.
Sep. 15 0 $0.21 -94.3% -1.48%*** -1.76%*** -4.71% -3.30% First day of trading after Lehman bankruptcy announcement.
Sep. 16 +1 $0.3 42.9% -0.58% -0.04% 1.75% 0.61% Barclays announced that it had agreed to purchase, subject to
regulatory approval, Lehman's New York headquarters and North
American investment banking and capital markets businesses.
Sep. 17 +2 $0.13 -56.7% -1.09% -0.52% -4.71% -4.79% Lehman’s stock delisted from the NYSE at market close.
Sep. 18 +3 -- -- 0.41% 0.58% 4.33% 4.76%
Sep. 19 +4 -- -- 2.60%** 1.93%*** 4.03% 3.00%
46
Table II
The Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Equity Underwriting Clients to Lehman’s Bankruptcy
“Lehman Clients” are 184 nonfinancial, non-utility firms that employed Lehman as lead underwriter in a public common
stock offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. “Clients of IBs with Similar Industry Status” are 946
nonfinancial, non-utility firms that didn’t employ Lehman but did employ one of the following banks in a public common
stock offering during the same period: Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi, UBS, Credit
Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Wachovia. In Panels A, B, and C, model parameters are estimated over
Days -290 to -31, where Day 0 is September 15, 2008. In Panels D and E, abnormal returns equal the sample firm’s raw
return minus the raw return of a matched non-sample firm. In Panel D, matched firms are selected such that the sum of the
absolute percentage differences between the market values of equity and book-to-market ratios of the sample firm and
matched firm is minimized. In Panel E, each sample firm is matched to the non-sample firm in the same Fama-French 49
industry that is closest in market value of equity. For mean CARs, t-statistics are computed with the standardized cross-
sectional method of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen (1991) and adjusted for cross-sectional correlation following Kolari
and Pynnönen (2010). The t-statistics for the differences in means are computed with the cross-sectional variances of
CARs and assume unequal variances across the two samples. *, **, and *** indicate statistical significance at the 10%,
5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in two-tailed tests.
Lehman Clients (N=184)
Clients of IBs with Similar
Industry Status (N=946) Difference in Means
(1)
(2)
Event Window Mean CAR t-stat Mean CAR t-stat (1) - (2) t-stat
Panel A: Fama-French-Carhart Four-Factor Model Adjusted Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) 0.18% 0.25 -0.21% -0.31 0.39% 0.22
(-5,+1) -4.85%*** -3.19
-1.91% -1.59 -2.94%*** -2.84
(0,0) -1.48%*** -2.78
-0.66% -1.38 -0.82%** -1.98
(0,+1) -2.07%** -2.30
-0.93%* -1.81 -1.14%* -1.84
(+2,+30) -7.07%** -2.41
-4.42%*** -2.87 -2.65% -1.11
(-30,+30) -11.7%** -2.54 -6.54%*** -2.84 -5.20% -1.45
Panel B: Fama-French Three-Factor Model Adjusted Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) 0.25% 0.25
-0.12% -0.23 0.37% 0.21
(-5,+1) -5.09%*** -3.43
-2.21%* -1.81 -2.88%*** -2.93
(0,0) -1.46%*** -2.74
-0.64% -1.26 -0.83%* -1.97
(0,+1) -2.17%** -2.35
-1.05%** -2.02 -1.11%* -1.86
(+2,+30) -6.72%** -2.35
-3.90%** -2.55 -2.82% -1.13
(-30,+30) -11.56%** -2.49 -6.23%*** -2.63 -5.33% -1.45
Panel C: Market Model Adjusted Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) 2.42% 0.76
2.92% 1.07 -0.50% -0.27
(-5,+1) -4.26%** -2.14
-1.23% -0.47 -3.04%*** -3.05
(0,0) -0.18% -0.46
0.68% 0.61 -0.87%** -2.10
(0,+1) -0.84% -0.69
0.46% 0.51 -1.29%** -2.10
(+2,+30) -11.4%*** -2.74
-9.42%*** -2.68 -1.94% -0.81
(-30,+30) -13.2%** -2.11 -7.73% -1.64 -5.48% -1.49
Panel D: Size-Book-to-Market Matched Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) -2.09% -0.55
-1.54% -0.94 -0.55% -0.27
(-5,+1) -4.77%*** -3.00
-1.29%* -1.67 -3.48%*** -2.72
(0,0) -1.25%** -2.17
0.20% 0.25 -1.45%*** -2.83
(0,+1) -1.95%** -1.97
-0.16% -0.47 -1.79%** -2.26
(+2,+30) -10.9%** -2.56
-9.47%*** -3.56 -1.39% -0.43
(-30,+30) -17.7%*** -2.90
-12.3%*** -3.59 -5.41% -1.17
Panel E: Industry-Size Matched Abnormal Returns
(-30,-6) -1.37% -0.55 -0.94% -0.78 -0.43% -0.24
(-5,+1) -4.03%*** -3.19 -1.44%** -2.25 -2.59%** -2.34
(0,0) -1.23%*** -2.65 0.02% -0.24 -1.24%*** -2.69
(0,+1) -1.36%* -1.87 -0.04% -0.25 -1.33%* -1.89
(+2,+30) -8.15%** -2.53 -5.13%** -2.36 -3.02% -1.04
(-30,+30) -13.6%*** -3.06 -7.51%*** -2.84 -6.04% -1.52
47
Table III
The Stock Price Reaction of Lehman’s Debt Underwriting Clients, M&A Clients, Firms for which
Lehman Served as the NYSE Specialist, and Firms that Received Analyst Coverage from Lehman
In Panel A, the sample consists of 53 industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that used Lehman as a lead
underwriter for at least one public straight debt offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. In
Panel B, the sample consists of seven industrial firms that used Lehman as a lead underwriter for at least one
public convertible debt offering during the same period. In Panel C, the sample consists of 87 industrial firms
that used Lehman as a financial advisor on a completed acquisition announced during the same time period. In
Panel D, the sample consists of 151 industrial firms listed on the NYSE for which Lehman was the NYSE
specialist at the time of Lehman’s bankruptcy. In Panel E, the sample consists of 633 industrial firms for which
an analyst from Lehman made at least one earnings forecast during the firm’s current fiscal quarter or last fiscal
quarter. The “Equity Underwriting” samples consist of firms that also received equity underwriting services
from Lehman. Day 0 is September 15, 2008. Abnormal returns are estimated using the Fama-French-Carhart
four-factor model and a 260-day estimation period (-290,-31). All t-statistics are computed with the
standardized cross-sectional method of Boehmer, Musumeci, and Poulsen (1991) and adjusted for cross-
sectional correlation following Kolari and Pynnönen (2010). *, **, and *** indicate statistical significance at
the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in two-tailed t-tests.
Event
Window Mean CAR t-stat
Mean CAR t-stat Mean CAR t-stat
Panel A: Lehman Public Straight Debt Underwriting Clients
All (N=53)
Equity Underwriting (N=12)
No Equity Underwriting (N=41)
(-30,-6) 2.55%* 1.85 -1.20% -0.89 3.65%** 2.13
(-5,+1) -0.37% -0.01 -7.29%* -2.27 1.66% 1.66
(0,0) 0.25% 0.63 -2.08% -1.74 0.93%** 2.13
(0,+1) -0.88% -0.98 -4.08%** -2.31 0.06% 0.44
(+2,+30) -7.72%** -2.10 -20.62%* -2.09 -3.95% -1.24
(-30,+30) -5.54% -0.82 -29.11%** -2.96 1.36% 0.49
Panel B: Lehman Public Convertible Debt Underwriting Clients
All (N=7)
Equity Underwriting (N=5)
No Equity Underwriting (N=2)
(-30,-6) 2.96% 1.03 3.75% 1.02 0.99% 0.21
(-5,+1) -5.25% -1.24 -7.17% -1.33 -0.46% 0.04
(0,0) -2.98% -1.57 -2.28% -1.09 -4.74% -3.13
(0,+1) -1.18% -0.68 -0.69% -0.47 -2.43% -1.32
(+2,+30) -12.27% -1.31 -9.34% -0.7 -19.58% -4.87
(-30,+30) -14.56% -1.09 -12.76% -0.75 -19.05% -1.39
Panel C: Lehman M&A Clients
All (N=87)
Equity Underwriting (N=24)
No Equity Underwriting (N=63)
(-30,-6) 3.02%* 1.68 5.56%* 1.84 2.05% 1.14
(-5,+1) 1.30% 1.06 0.43% 0.14 1.63% 1.21
(0,0) 0.47% 0.42 -0.86% -0.90 0.97% 0.64
(0,+1) 0.49% 0.36 -0.37% -0.09 0.82% 0.43
(+2,+30) -8.54%** -2.17 -8.86%** -2.20 -8.42%* -1.70
(-30,+30) -4.22% -0.68 -2.87% -0.55 -4.74% -0.56
48
Table III-Continued
Panel D: Lehman is the NYSE Specialist
All (N=151)
Equity Underwriting (N=13)
No Equity Underwriting (N=138)
(-30,-6) 0.65% 0.37 4.31% 1.66 0.31% 0.16
(-5,+1) 0.03% 0.27 -1.47% -0.17 0.17% 0.32
(0,0) -0.07% 0.08 1.92% 1.45 -0.26% -0.14
(0,+1) -0.70% -0.93 1.91%* 2.13 -0.95% -1.20
(+2,+30) -7.84%** -2.54 -16.63%** -2.25 -7.01%** -2.23
(-30,+30) -7.16%* -1.68 -13.80% -1.15 -6.54% -1.53
Panel E: Firms Receiving Analyst Coverage from Lehman
All (N=633)
Equity Underwriting (N=122)
No Equity Underwriting (N=511)
(-30,-6) 1.40% 1.32 1.81% 0.54 1.30% 1.36
(-5,+1) -0.38% -0.02 -4.20%** -2.55 0.54% 0.93
(0,0) -0.11% 0.07 -0.99%* -1.92 0.10% 0.66
(0,+1) -0.16% -0.39 -0.55% -1.08 -0.06% -0.08
(+2,+30) -5.33%** -2.83 -5.84%* -1.93 -5.21%*** -2.60
(-30,+30) -4.31%* -1.76 -8.23%* -1.82 -3.37% -1.39
49
Table IV
Cross-Sectional Analysis of Lehman Equity Underwriting Clients’ Stock Price Reaction
to Lehman's Bankruptcy
The sample consists of 184 industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that used Lehman Brothers as a lead underwriter
for at least one public common stock offering during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008. All regressions are
estimated using the portfolio weighted least squares (PWLS) approach of Chandra and Balachandran (1992) over Day -
290 to Day +10 using a two-day event period (Day 0 and Day +1) and the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model. Day
0 is September 15, 2008. The reported coefficients represent the marginal effect of the independent variable on the
client’s two-day percentage CAR. All variable definitions are in the Appendix. All t-statistics are reported in parentheses
below estimated coefficients. *, **, and *** indicate statistical significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively,
in two-tailed tests.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
-1.51* -1.54* -1.434* -1.444* Ln(1 + # of common stock
offerings with Lehman) (-1.88) (-1.92) (-1.80) (-1.72)
-0.934 -0.652 Lehman’s share of client’s
common stock offerings (-0.92) (-0.62)
Lehman is lead lender -2.548** -2.834** -2.392** -2.622** -2.440**
(-2.25) (-2.52) (-2.17) (-2.37) (-2.22)
Lehman is participant lender -0.34 -0.53 -0.18 -0.378 -0.214
(-0.46) (-0.73) (-0.25) (-0.52) (-0.29)
-18.652 -19.66 -18.576 -18.328 -19.378 Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc
(-1.14) (-1.20) (-1.14) (-1.12) (-1.18)
-13.632 -14.454 -7.668 -12.27 -6.254 Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Neuberger Berman
LLC
(-0.81) (-0.84) (-0.46) (-0.73) (-0.37)
Equity shelf registration dummy 1.782 1.848 1.896 1.824 1.874
(1.42) (1.48) (1.51) (1.45) (1.50)
0.582 0.702* 0.684* 0.772** 0.712* Ln(age)
(1.56) (1.88) (1.86) (2.08) (1.94)
0.508* 0.452* 0.606** 0.356 0.578** Ln(market cap)
(1.90) (1.67) (2.24) (1.37) (2.11)
Net market leverage -1.896 -2.074
(-1.14) (-1.22)
Cash-to-assets 3.68** 3.728**
(2.06) (2.07)
Z-score 0.08**
(2.09)
-2.438** -2.798** -2.458** -2.432** -2.472** Underwriting relationship scope
index (-2.05) (-2.34) (-2.07) (-2.05) (-2.09)
Intercept -2.296 -2.562 -4.218* -2.254 -3.820*
(-1.11) (-1.21) (-1.95) (-1.09) (-1.74)
Number of firms 184 184 184 184 184
50
Table V
Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis of Lehman Clients’ Stock Price Reaction to Lehman’s Bankruptcy
The sample consists of 807 industrial (nonfinancial, non-utility) firms that received at least one of the following services from
Lehman Brothers: underwriting of a public common stock, public straight debt, or public convertible debt offering during
September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008; financial advisory service in a completed acquisition of a U.S. target announced
during September 14, 1998 to September 14, 2008; market-making service as the NYSE specialist at the time of Lehman’s
bankruptcy; and coverage (at least one earnings forecast) by an equity analyst from Lehman during the firm’s current fiscal
quarter or last fiscal quarter, where the current fiscal quarter contains September 15, 2008. All regressions are estimated using
the portfolio weighted least squares (PWLS) approach of Chandra and Balachandran (1992) over Day -290 to Day +10 using a
two-day event period (Day 0 and Day +1) and the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model. Day 0 is September 15, 2008. The
reported coefficients represent the marginal effect of the independent variable on the client’s two-day percentage CAR. All
variable definitions are in the Appendix. All t-statistics are reported in parentheses below estimated coefficients. *, **, and ***
indicate statistical significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively, in two-tailed tests.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
-1.714*** -1.265*** Lehman equity underwriting
client (-3.25) (-2.70)
-2.815*** -2.36*** -2.20*** Ln(1+ # of common stock
offerings with Lehman) (-4.77) (-4.45) (-4.26)
-0.477 -0.034 Lehman straight debt
underwriting client (-1.42) (-0.09)
0.417 0.560 0.639 Ln(1+ # of straight debt offerings
with Lehman) (1.03) (1.48) (1.46)
-0.292 0.079 Lehman convertible debt
underwriting client (-0.14) (0.04)
-1.753 -1.496 -1.259 Ln(1+ # of convertible debt
offerings with Lehman) (-0.26) (-0.22) (-0.19)
Lehman M&A client 0.911*** 1.021*** 0.991*** 1.034***
(2.74) (3.07) (2.95) (3.11)
0.871** 1.15*** 1.188*** Ln(1+ # of M&A deals with
Lehman) (1.97) (2.64) (2.81)
Lehman NYSE specialist -0.091 -0.002 -0.069 0.027 -0.196 -0.134 -0.145
(-0.26) (-0.01) (-0.20) (0.08) (-0.56) (-0.39) (-0.42)
Lehman analyst coverage 0.692* 0.703 0.802** 0.693 0.451 0.517 0.520
(1.69) (1.60) (1.99) (1.58) (1.10) (1.19) (1.20)
-1.157*** -0.747** -0.190 Underwriting relationship scope
index (-3.48) (-2.17) (-0.50)
Lehman is lead lender -2.893*** -2.807*** -3.167*** -3.047***
(-3.76) (-3.65) (-4.06) (-3.96)
Lehman is participant lender -0.151 0.02 -0.084 -0.014
(-0.46) (0.06) (-0.27) (-0.04)
-19.216 -18.733 -15.698 -14.879
Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc
(-1.26) (-1.22) (-1.02) (-0.96)
-8.435 -9.358 -8.264 -8.076 Proportion of outstanding shares
owned by Neuberger Berman
LLC
(-0.96) (-1.06) (-0.93) (-0.92)
0.468** 0.507** 0.463** 0.46**
Ln(age)
(2.34) (2.49) (2.29) (2.29)
-0.121 -0.073 -0.139 -0.141 Ln(market cap)
(-1.02) (-0.63) (-1.21) (-1.23)
Z-score 0.118*** 0.114*** 0.112*** 0.112***
(4.05) (3.95) (3.90) (3.90)
Intercept -0.645 -1.500 -0.759 -2.048* -0.472 -1.114 -1.072
(-1.21) (-1.36) (-1.48) (-1.91) (-0.90) (-1.04) (-1.00)
Number of firms 807 804 807 804 807 804 804
51
Notes
1
Examples of rescues during the 2008 financial crisis include the J.P. Morgan takeover of Bear Stearns, Bank of
America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch, and the U.S. Government’s bailout of American International Group, Fannie
Mae, and Freddie Mac.
2
Benveniste and Spindt (1989) present a theoretical rationale for this argument, while Benveniste and Wilhelm
(1990), Cornelli and Goldreich (2001), Ritter and Welch (2002), Ljungqvist, Jenkinson, and Wilhelm (2003), and
Gao and Ritter (2010) provide empirical support. Brau and Fawcett (2006) observe that the majority of CFOs in
their survey carefully weigh the institutional client base of the underwriter.
3
More generally, Gande, Puri, and Saunders (1999), Song (2004), and Narayanan, Rangan, and Rangan (2004) all
document that the entry of commercial banks into the securities underwriting business (mostly debt underwriting)
has benefited issuing firms by reducing average fees charged by all underwriters. However, Shivdasani and Song
(2010) argue that these benefits came at the cost of lower screening incentives among bond underwriters and show
that industries with higher commercial bank penetration tended to have lower screening standards during 1996 to
2000.
4
See McLaughlin (1990), Servaes and Zenner (1996), Rau (2000), Kale, Kini, and Ryan (2003), Allen et al. (2004),
and Kisgen, Qian, and Song (2009).
5
See Cao, Choe, and Hatheway (1997), Corwin (1999), Coughenour and Deli (2002), Ellis Michaely, and O’Hara
(2000, 2002), and Corwin, Harris, and Lipson (2004).
6
Throughout, any references to underwriters or underwriting refer only to lead or co-lead underwriters, not co-
managers.
7
For example, 95% of the largest 1,000 claims among the 57,057 claims lodged as of the November 2, 2009 final
filing deadline (In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 08-13555, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New
York) were from financial firms.
8
Megginson and Weiss (1991) compute underwriting market share as the fraction of prior year equity offerings
underwritten by a given bank, while Carter and Manaster (1990) assign numerical rankings of zero to nine based on
an underwriter’s relative position in IPO tombstone announcements, with a ranking of nine corresponding to the
most prestigious underwriters and zero to the least prestigious. The updated Carter-Manaster rankings are
generously provided by Jay Ritter on his webpage.
9
Thomson has removed all earnings forecasts made by a Lehman analyst from the August 2009 I/B/E/S data that are
available through WRDS. We obtained our I/B/E/S data directly from Thomson, and Thomson generously provided
us the data that still contain those observations.
10
For detailed descriptions of all variables in the paper, please see the Appendix. While we have carried out similar
cross-sectional analyses for the other client categories, the results are not reported in the paper but are available in
52
the Internet Appendix, which is published on the Journal of Finance website at
http://www.afajof.org/supplements.asp.
11
SEC Rule 13f is set up to have no overlap in the holdings reported by subsidiaries and parents or different
subsidiaries of the same parent. Parents may file on behalf of subsidiaries, but if a subsidiary files on its own behalf,
the holdings reported by the subsidiary are not reported on the 13f filing of the parent, and vice versa.
12
The data in CDA/Spectrum are based on quarterly SEC filings. We measure these variables over the prior
calendar quarter, which ended June 30, 2008.
13
The daily factor returns for the SMB, HML, and UMD portfolios are generously provided by Kenneth French on
his website.
14
For example, our sample of Lehman equity underwriting clients is typical of recent stock issuer samples in that
the average market capitalization is lower than the CRSP average and the average and median book-to-market ratios
are lower than the CRSP average and median, respectively.
15
Brav, Geczy, and Gompers (2000) find that equally weighted portfolios comprised of recent stock issuers (IPOs
and SEOs) do not exhibit long-run abnormal underperformance when the Fama-French-Carhart four-factor model is
used to estimate abnormal returns. They conclude that the model sufficiently captures the joint covariation of issuer
returns.
16
Unless otherwise stated, all statements of statistical significance refer to the 5% level or better in two-tailed tests.
17
We also investigate the possibility that abnormal returns of Lehman’s equity underwriting clients reflect
temporary overreactions by examining mean CARs over the (+2,+30) window. However, all the post-event mean
CARs in Table II are negative, which is inconsistent with temporary overreaction. Another concern is that the event
period CARs will understate true client losses if Lehman’s collapse was highly anticipated prior to the event period.
To explore this possibility, we examine abnormal returns over the (-30,-6) period. As reported in Table II, we find
no evidence of significantly negative abnormal returns over this pre-event period, indicating that little would be
gained by including the (-30,-6) CARs in our value loss estimates.
18
PWLS is the weighted version of the portfolio time series ordinary least squares (POLS) approach of Sefcik and
Thompson (1986). As with weighted least squares (WLS), each observation receives a weight that is inversely
proportional to its variance in PWLS, where the variance is estimated using a time series of residuals from the
chosen asset return generating model. We use the time series of residuals from the four-factor model estimated over
the pre-event estimation period (Day -290 to -31) to estimate the variance of each observation.
19
We employ several alternate ways of measuring the firm’s reliance on Lehman relative to other investment banks,
including using Lehman’s share of the client’s common stock proceeds (rather than offerings), using the natural log
of the number of lead underwriters that the firm dealt with in its equity offerings during the sample period, and using
a dummy variable to differentiate clients that dealt exclusively with Lehman. As with Lehman’s share of the client’s
common stock offerings, these alternatives have the predicted sign but are never significant.
doc_325821268.pdf