Evangelos Koumanakos

The Saturday effect in emerging stock markets: a stochastic dominance approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the Saturday effect in three emerging stock markets (Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) by taking into consideration the thin trading that is normal in such capital markets.Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies the stochastic dominance (SD) approach, which is not distribution‐dependent and can shed light on the utility and wealth implications of portfolio preferences by exploiting information in higher order moments, to investigate empirically the existence of the Saturday effect in the three Gulf stock markets.Findings – The findings indicate that the Saturday effect does not manifest itself in the three Gulf stock markets and that the SD results show that the Saturday effect in these markets is not present when raw data are corrected for thin and infrequent trading.Originality/value – This paper is believed to be the first to use SD approach to examine the Saturday effect.

Identification of Greek Takeover Targets and Coherent Policy Implications

The main purpose of this paper is the identification of the characteristics of takeover targets in a small open economy like Greece, using the market for corporate control (MCC) hypothesis as theoretical background. Contrary to this hypothesis, the results indicate that the motives for merging or acquisition activities are basically of strategic character. Using a sample of 35 acquired and 105 non-acquired firms, the sampling process was initially performed by a modified methodology of state-based sampling, even if its nature cannot be recognized by the classical maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of logit model. Subsequently, taking into account the small size of the sample, we develop and use, in the logit context, the bootstrap MLE as an advanced alternative method for reducing inherit bias and inefficiency. The findings remain uniform supporting the strategic motives explanation in actual takeover activities, a fact that clearly illustrates the framework of merger policies followed by the Greek Competition Committee during the period under study.

Prediction of Greek takeover targets via bootstrapping on mixed logit model

Purpose - The main purpose of this study is to examine the possibility of prediction of Greek takeover targets that belong to the industrial sector, emphasizing the econometric methodology and the prediction test. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses a sample of 51 targets and 290 non-targets exclusively from Greek industry over the period 1997-2005. In order to achieve a better predictive accuracy the paper uses a new econometric methodology, the bootstrap mixed logit and different (more advanced) techniques of prediction test and choice of cutoff values. Findings - The results exhibit that bootstrap mixed logit has significant and valuable predictive ability with respect to the classical conditional logit model. Furthermore, the predictive accuracy is higher than the results of other studies (e.g Palepu and Espahbodi and Espahbodi). Originality/value - The main contribution of this study is the application of the bootstrap mixed logit in analyzing Greek takeovers. The results change the prediction variables as well as the determinants of the takeover target characteristics for the Greek industry. This is meaningful, not only for the investors that seek to increase the value of their fortune through acquisitions, but also for the managers that can detect if their firm might be considered a takeover target.

Intellectual capital and profitability in European football clubs

The scope of this study is to examine the impact of intellectual capital on the profitability of European listed football clubs which are characterised as a human intensive industry. Selecting a sample from nine European countries over the period 2005-2010, the paper incorporates panel data methodologies in order to examine the impact of intellectual capital (measured via the value added intellectual coefficient - VAIC) on the financial performance of listed football clubs. Evidence indicates a positive association between intellectual capital and profitability. Specifically, the human capital efficiency indicator presents the most significant association with profitability, suggesting that managers who spent more on their employees (players, technical staff, etc.) add higher value to the organisation which leads to enhanced financial performance. This study can provide the impetus for managers and regulators to consider the management and reporting of IC components on a regular basis as an additional tool for alleviating the immense financial problems of European football clubs.

Corporate failure risk assessment of Greek companies

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of corporate failure risk for the Greek non-financial companies using public accounts. Our motivation stems from the results of a recent international survey revealing that, during the period 2003?2004, Greece showed the biggest in terms of percentage, increase in corporate insolvencies among all the European countries. By exploiting a recent database and a set of variables as possible predictors of corporate failure, we use two competitive logit models comparing their predictive accuracy. Surprisingly, both the models exhibit low failure prediction ability a fact that intensify concerns about the quality of financial reporting of the Greek firms.

Intra‐firm organization and profitability

Purpose – By conducting a field research in affiliates of foreign transnational corporations (TNCs) established in Greece, this paper aims to investigate whether a different tendency of intra‐firm organization has a different impact on their profitability and earnings management policy.Design/methodology/approach – The original sample consists of 82 affiliates of foreign TNCs. Using a cut off point (25 percent) indicative of intra‐firm pattern, these affiliates are divided into two categories: foreign subsidiaries with a high intra‐firm trade degree (or with intra‐firm trade >25 percent of their total trade) and foreign subsidiaries with a low intra‐firm trade degree (or with intra‐firm trade ≤25 percent of their total trade) correspondingly. The paper utilizes two econometric tests over the period 1999‐2002: first, a logit model is employed to identify possible accounting‐based performance differences related to differential degrees of intra‐firm trade. Second, the popular cross‐sectional discretionary a...