Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-31T09:19:45.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Bank Loan Announcement Effects: Evidence from a Comprehensive 8-K Sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2025

Steven Wei Ho
Affiliation:
Department of Finance, University of Nevada, Las Vegas steven.ho@unlv.edu
Clark Liu
Affiliation:
PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University liuyue@pbcsf.tsinghua.edu.cn
Shujing Wang*
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Management, Tongji University
*
shujingwang@connect.ust.hk (corresponding author)
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We investigate whether bank loan financing from 1994 to 2018 conveys valuable private information using a sample of over 10,000 bank loan announcements identified from 8-K filings. We show that the positive announcement effect is persistent and closely related to the information revealed in loan characteristics: The effect is stronger when deals have higher materiality, more favorable pricing, larger lead bank shares, and higher syndicate concentration. The effect is also stronger when lenders have higher credit quality and when credit market conditions are worse. The insignificant wealth effect documented in several early studies is potentially driven by small sample size.

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use and/or adaptation of the article.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington

Footnotes

Steven Wei Ho and Clark Liu are co-first authors.

We sincerely thank Ran Duchin (the editor) and the referee for the improvements of this paper. We also thank Matthew Billett, Daniel Chi, Francesco D’Acunto, Mark Flannery, Michelle Hanlon, Tien Trung Nguyen, Daniel Paravasini, Terrance Odean, Anthony Saunders, Tong Yu, and participants at the 2018 Conference on the Theories and Practices of Securities and Financial Markets, 2019 Paris Financial Management Conference, 2019 Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, 2021 AEA Poster Session, 2022 Financial Markets and Corporate Governance Conference, 2022 Asian FA Annual Meeting, and 2022 FMA Annual Meeting, for their valuable comments and suggestions. We acknowledge University of Nevada Las Vegas and Tsinghua University for research support. We also thank Shuyue Chen and doctoral students at Tongji University for their excellent RA work. All errors are our own.

Funding: Wang acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 72373110 and 71902140] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China.

References

Badoer, D. C.; Emin, M.; and James, C. M.. “Contracting Costs, Covenant-Lite Lending, and Reputational Capital.” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 59 (2024), 33763415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, T.; Saunders, A.; and Steffen, S.. “The Total Cost of Corporate Borrowing in the Loan Market: Don’t Ignore the Fees.” Journal of Finance, 71 (2016), 13571392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Best, R., and Zhang, H.. “Alternative Information Sources and the Information Content of Bank Loans.” Journal of Finance, 48 (1993), 15071522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billett, M. T.; Flannery, M. J.; and Garfinkel, J. A.. “The Effect of Lender Identity on a Borrowing Firm’s Equity Return.” Journal of Finance, 50 (1995), 699718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, M., and Hrycray, M.. “Credit Flow, Risk, and the Role of Private Debt in Capital Structure.” Working Paper, Federal Reserve Board (1999).Google Scholar
Dahiya, S.; Puri, M.; and Saunders, A.. “Bank Borrowers and Loan Sales: New Evidence on the Uniqueness of Bank Loans.” Journal of Business, 76 (2003), 563582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniel, K.; Grinblatt, M.; Titman, S.; and Wermers, R.. “Measuring Mutual Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks.” Journal of Finance, 52 (1997), 10351058.Google Scholar
De Marco, F., and Petriconi, S.. “Bank Competition and Information Production.” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 59 (2024), 34793499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dell’Ariccia, G., and Marquez, R.. “Information and Bank Credit Allocation.” Journal of Financial Economics, 72 (2004), 185214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demiroglu, C.; James, C.; and Velioglu, G.. “Why are Commercial Loan Rates so Sticky? The Effect of Private Information on Loan Spreads.” Journal of Financial Economics, 143 (2022), 959972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demiroglu, C., and James, C. M.. “The Information Content of Bank Loan Covenants.” Review of Financial Studies, 23 (2010), 37003737.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, D. W.Financial Intermediation and Delegated Monitoring.” Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 393414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, D. W.Debt Maturity Structure and Liquidity Risk.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106 (1991), 709737.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffie, D.Financial Regulatory Reform After the Crisis: An Assessment.” Management Science, 64 (2018), 44714965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, E. F.Banking in the Theory of Finance.” Journal of Monetary Economics, 6 (1980), 3957.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, E. F.What’s Different About Banks.” Journal of Monetary Economics, 15 (1985), 2939.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, E. F., and French, K. R.. “A Five-Factor Asset Pricing Model.” Journal of Financial Economics, 116 (2015), 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fields, L. P.; Fraser, D. R.; Berry, T. L.; and Byers, S.. “Do Bank Loan Relationships Still Matter.” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, 38 (2006), 11951209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flannery, M. J.; Kwan, S. H.; and Nimalendran, M.. “The 20072009 Financial Crisis and Bank Opaqueness.” Journal of Financial Intermediation, 22 (2013), 5584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gande, A., and Saunders, A. “Are Banks Still Special When There Is a Secondary Market for Loans.” Journal of Finance, 67 (2012), 16491684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, W.The Behaviour of the Maximum Likelihood Estimator of Limited Dependent Variable Models in the Presence of Fixed Effects.” The Econometrics Journal, 7 (2004), 98119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadlock, C. J., and James, C. M.. “Do Banks Provide Financial Slack?Journal of Finance, 57 (2002), 13831419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ho, S. W., Hong, W., and Zhang, M.. “Information Leakage Prior to SEC Form Filings–Evidence from TAQ Millisecond Data.” Available at SSRN 3302096 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmstrom, B.Moral Hazard and Observability.” Bell Journal of Economics, 10 (1979), 7491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmstrom, B., and Tirole, J.. “Financial Intermediation, Loanable Funds, and the Real Sector.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 11 (1997), 663691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivashina, V., and Scharfstein, D.. “Loan Syndication and Credit Cycles.” American Economic Review, 100 (2010), 5761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivashina, V., and Sun, Z.. “Institutional Demand Pressure and the Cost of Corporate Loans.” Journal of Financial Economics, 99 (2011), 500522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, C.Some Evidence on the Uniqueness of Bank Loans.” Journal of Financial Economics, 19 (1987), 217235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, C.Heterogeneous Creditors and the Market Value of Bank Ldc Loan Portfolios.” Journal of Monetary Economics, 25 (1990), 325346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, C., and Smith, D. C.. “Are Banks Still Special? New Evidence on Their Role in the Corporate Capital-Raising Process.” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 13 (2000), 5263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leland, H. E., and Pyle, D. H.. “Informational Asymmetries, Financial Structure, and Financial Intermediation.” Journal of Finance, 32 (1977), 371387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerman, A., and Livnat, J.. “The New Form 8-K disclosures.” Review of Accounting Studies, 15 (2010), 752778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, C.; Officer, M. S.; Wang, R.; and Zou, H.. “Directors’ and Officers’ Liability Insurance and Loan Spreads.” Journal of Financial Economics, 110 (2013), 3760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lummer, S. L., and McConnell, J. J.. “Further Evidence on the Bank Lending Process and the Capital-Market Response to Bank Loan Agreements.” Journal of Financial Economics, 25 (1989), 99122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maskara, P. K., and Mullineaux, D. J.. “Information Asymmetry and Self-Selection Bias in Bank Loan Announcement Studies.” Journal of Financial Economics, 101 (2011), 684694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikkelson, W. H., and Partch, M. M.. “Valuation Effects of Security Offerings and the Issuance Process.” Journal of Financial Economics, 15 (1986), 3160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennacchi, G. G.Loan Sales and the Cost of Bank Capital.” Journal of Finance, 43 (1988), 375396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Puri, M.Commercial Banks in Investment Banking Conflict of Interest or Certification Role?Journal of Financial Economics, 40 (1996), 373401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramakrishnan, R. T. S., and Thakor, A. V.. “Information Reliability and a Theory of Financial Intermediation.” Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 415432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, M. R.The Role of Dynamic Renegotiation and Asymmetric Information in Financial Contracting.” Journal of Financial Economics, 116 (2015), 6181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, D. G.The “Dominant Bank Effect”: How High Lender Reputation Affects the Information Content and Terms of Bank Loans.” Review of Financial Studies, 23 (2010), 27302756.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santos, J. A.C., and Winton, A.. “Bank Capital, Borrower Power, and Loan Rates.” Review of Financial Studies, 32 (2019), 45014541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwert, M.Bank Capital and Lending Relationships.” Journal of Finance, 73 (2018), 787830.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slovin, M. B.; Johnson, S. A.; and Glascock, J. L.. “Firm Size and the Information Content of Bank Loan Announcements.” Journal of Banking and Finance, 16 (1992), 10571071.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, J. C.Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized Versus Hierarchical Firms.” Journal of Finance, 57 (2002), 18911921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sufi, A.Information Asymmetry and Financing Arrangements: Evidence from Syndicated Loans.” Journal of Finance, 62 (2007), 629668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Ho et al. supplementary material

Ho et al. supplementary material
Download Ho et al. supplementary material(File)
File 949.1 KB