The effects of rights issue announcements on stock returns for firms listed at the Nairobi securities exchange
Date
2016Author
Otieno, Ouma D
Ochieng, Duncan E
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Rights issue is a secondary equity issue in which new additional shares are issued to the existing
shareholders in exchange for cash (capital) needed by a publicly quoted company, either for
expansion purposes or to finance company operations. The rights are issued to the shareholders in
the proportion of their existing holdings. Empirical studies give mixed results on the direction of
stock returns upon a rights issue announcement. Since there has been no consensus on how capital
markets generally respond to rights issue announcement, this study investigates the effect of rights
issue announcement on stock returns of companies listed at an organised exchange. The study
adopts an event study technique on a sample of twelve companies which issued rights between
January 1, 2007 and August 31, 2014. Secondary data on share prices is collected from the Nairobi
Securities Exchange (NSE) database. The study establishes that stock prices and returns changes
significantly in the post announcement period than in the preannouncement period. Analysis of
mean abnormal return reveales that rights issue announcement results into either positive or
negative stock return. Based on the cumulative average abnormal return (CAAR), the study
concludes that rights issue announcement results into a negative abnormal stock return for the listed
firms. The study therefore recommends that the investment banks and listed companies should
consider the negative abnormal stock price reactions and the subsequent negative abnormal stock
return changes to the announcement of rights issue while setting the discounted rights issue prices
so as to ensure that during the issue period, the stock trading prices do not fall below the rights issue
price, a fact that can lead to the collapse of the rights issue exercise. The study recommends further
academic exploration on the effects of repeat rights issues on stock prices and returns so as to
understand the possible response of investors to seasonal issues.
URI
https://profiles.uonbi.ac.ke/duncanelly/publications/effects-rights-issue-announcements-stock-returns-firms-listed-nairobi-securihttp://hdl.handle.net/11295/100671
Citation
D E, D O. "The effects of Rights Issue Announcements on Stock Returns for Firms Listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange." International Journal of Education and Research . 2016;3(9): 2411-5681 .Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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