Stock Market and Analysts Reactions to Corporate Name Changes: Evidence from the Australian Capital Market

This paper investigates the impact of corporate name changes on both of stock performance and analysts’ reaction with the employment of event study. We first examine a sample of 387 listed Australian companies that renamed themselves during the time frame from January 2001 to December 2007. Separate analyses are conducted under three criterion dividing the overall sample into (1)”major” versus “minor” name changes; (2)name changes in “mining-related” versus “non-mining-related” sectors; and (3)name changes “with” versus “without” reasons mentioned. Generally, we find some evidence of significant negative association between corporate name changes and cumulative abnormal return. The result shows, unlike all other subgroups, name changes “with” reasons mentioned generate insignificant positive valuation effects. Separate analyses give two important implications. First, negative cumulative abnormal return in all subgroups is discovered except in the subgroup of name changes “with” reasons mentioned. The difference of abnormal returns within subgroups, in addition, appears to be significant only between name change with reasons mentioned or not. Our findings suggest that analysts react reluctantly to corporate name changes by showing tiny downward forecast revisions, which are far from significant. Instead, it seems analysts make forecast revisions based more on accounting data, which shows insignificant variations between pre- and post-event, than on signals of corporate name changes