Market reactions to CEO turnover : A study on the Swedish market’s reactions to CEO turnover

This thesis investigates Swedish market reactions to CEO turnover and further studies how the size of these market reactions can be explained by company specific and CEO specific factors. Through t-tests and multivariate analysis this study analyses 136 CEO turnover announcements from the years 2017-2022 to find proof of a market reaction and to find potential explanations to the size of these market reactions. The results of this study show that the Swedish market on average reacts positively to CEO turnover announcements regarding the studied firms abnormal return and cumulative abnormal return, which shows that CEO turnover announcements contain useful information for investors. Our study finds indications of differences market reactions size of CEO turnover announcements between small and big firms and differences in market reaction regarding the experience level of the appointed CEO. Our study also found that a company's ROA, M/B, and their appointed CEO's experience level influence the size of these market reactions. As the market reactions due to CEO turnover often occurred the days before the CEO turnover announcement, this study's also found indications of potential insider information leakage within Swedish firms