Hue Hwa Au Yong

Asia-Pacific banks risk exposures: pre and post the Asian financial crisis

In this article, we provide an insight into Asia-Pacific banks’ market, interest rate and exchange rate exposures using a market-based model, pre and post the Asian financial crisis. Our study provides a unique comparative analysis across 10 countries, for both short-horizon and long-horizon risk exposures. Overall, our findings reveal that bank portfolios in countries that are harder hit by the Asian crisis have higher market and short-term interest rate exposures post-crisis. With long-horizon returns, there are a larger number of significant interest rate (IR) and exchange rate (ER) exposures, which are consistent with the prior literature that long-horizon return measures economic exposures that are difficult to hedge. When the long-horizon regressions with an error correction model are carried out, the results obtained support the short-horizon results. Among the country groups, the newly industrialized economies display the greatest sensitivity to IR and ER changes during the post-Asian crisis period. Investigating bank regulation effects, we find evidence that bank portfolios that experience lower restrictions on their activities and ownership, and greater private monitoring have lower market risk.

The long- and short-run financial impacts of cross listing on Australian firms

This paper investigates the short-run and long-run performance of Australian cross-listed firms relative to their industry rivals. The role of share trading liquidity and firm visibility in explaining abnormal returns is also investigated. In the short run, an abnormal return of 1.91% for cross-listed firms is found at announcement, while no significant abnormal returns is found for rivals on the event day. For the long-run analysis, only rival firms (especially for rivals of the non-market leaders) experience significant abnormal returns, which are negative. Cross listing into NEW ZEALAND and other countries induces a more negative impact on rivals than the UK. Lastly, liquidity is found to be a determinant of the short- and long-run abnormal returns.

A few good (wo)men? Gender diversity on Australian boards

This article examines the relation between gender diversity and earnings quality for Australian firms from 2005 to 2013. We draw on the work of Kanter, highlighting the importance of the proportion of women on the board when measuring diversity. We show that all-male and skewed boards have lower earnings quality while that of tilted and balanced boards is higher. In addition, a critical mass of women is achieved when some 30% of directors are females. Performance and risk do not influence the relation. We contribute by presenting evidence supporting critical mass theory. Furthermore, our work adds to the recent debate on whether the association between gender diversity and earnings quality is U-shaped, rather than linear. Our results have implications for regulation and practice. We identify the need for a critical mass of women, rather than tokens, to enhance earnings quality.

Off-Market Buybacks in Australia: Evidence of Abnormal Trading around Key Dates

Off-market share buybacks in Australia are often structured with the buyback price comprising a large dividend component (which may carry imputation tax credits) and a small capital component. This unique structure has the consequence that institutions on low tax rates stand to benefit most from selling shares into the buyback. In this article, we explore evidence of abnormal trading activities around key dates in the conduct of off-market buybacks and investigate the drivers of these activities. We find evidence of abnormal trading activities around the initial announcement and the final announcement dates of the buyback. The significant differences in abnormal volumes between the buybacks with and without imputation tax credits highlight the importance of tax motivations in explaining abnormal trading activities in the shares of companies conducting off-market buybacks, and are consistent with observed buying pressure around the announcement of the buyback.

Is there a Banking Risk Premium in the US Stock Market

This paper investigates whether there is a banking risk premium that helps explain the returns of US publicly listed firms. We assess this research question in the context of the CAPM and the Fama-French three-factor model. We use bank size to create the banking factor return (BNK) - the return on a mimicking portfolio that is long (short) big (small) banks. We find a positive premium for BNK and our analysis supports a risk-based interpretation, since the premium is priced. Our findings are notable since they point to a slight superiority of CAPM augmented by BNK over the counterpart that augments the Fama-French model with BNK.