Impact of CEO resignation on stock returns in hospitality industry : an event study
Date
2012
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
A change in executive leadership is a significant event in the life of a firm. A chief executive officer’s abilities, preferences, and ultimate decisions affect the firm through the projects the firm selects, its financial policy, and the corporate culture. To the ext ent that these characteristics and the resulting decisions differ across individuals, CEO changes can alter the course of the firm and its stock performance. Many studies have shown that CEO changes can have a significant impact on shareholder wealth and firm operations.
This study investigates an important consequence of a CEO resignation in the hospitality industry: the impact on stock returns. Two hypotheses were developed about how changes in CEO might affect stock returns, and they were tested by using a sample of 56 CEO resignations over the 1999 -2012 periods. The event study method was used to relate the event of CEO resignation to the stock returns of the company. In addition, the same analysis was conducted on data set from both hospitality companie s and non-hospitality companies in order to determine whether there are different market reactions across industries. The results demonstrated that hospitality stocks react significantly to CEO resignation. Hospitality stocks, to a small extent, tend to r eact negatively before the CEO resignation, and react positively to a large extent after the event. CAR data from hospitality firms and non-hospitality firms are significantly different from one another.
Keywords: CEO resignation, stock returns, event study analysis, abnormal returns, hospitality industry