Assessment Brief 2025/26

Please ensure you read the assessment question or task carefully and fully understand what is being asked.

If anything is unclear or you have questions, please post them on the course Moodle Discussion Forum, and a member of the teaching team will respond directly there.

Assessment Information

1.  QUESTION/ DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY

Assessment Question:

Please, complete both parts of the assignment:

PART 1 (2000 words) Read the paper

o    Carefully read the following paper: Hedge Fund Activism, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance by Brav, Jiang, Partnoy, Thomas, 2008 (Journal of Finance).

Collect data

o    SC13D filings: download SC13D filings from SEC EDGAR database for US public firms between 2010 and 2013 (SC13D only, no SC13D/A).

o    Hedge Fund identification: identify which filings are from hedge funds (you may need to use web searches to verify the identity of the filer).

o    Target Company Financials: retrieve financial data from Compustat (available via WRDS, access provided by University of Glasgow) and only keep target companies that are in Compustat.

Produce the following tables:

o    Table 1: time series of activist campaigns

o    Table 2: number of events per category (follow the classification in Table 1, Panel A, column 1 by Brav, Jiang, Partnoy, Thomas, 2008).

o    Table 3: summary statistics (Mean - Median - Standard Deviation - N) of the following target firm characteristics: MV, BM, q, GROWTH, ROA, CF, STKRET, LEV, CASH, DIVYLD, PAYOUT, RND, HHI. Follow the definition of Table 3 by Brav et al. 2008 (variables need to be winsorized).

o    Table 4: event study and regression analysis

§    compute Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) for target companies over the following event window (-20,+20) around the filing date of SC13D and test if they are significantly different from zero. Prices of target companies can be retrieved via Yahoo Finance or via Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP - available via WRDS, access provided by the University of Glasgow).

§    run a basic OLS regression with CAR as dependent variable and  financial characteristics from Table 3 as independent variables, including industry and year fixed effects

PART 2: case study Icahn’ Netflix campaign (1000 words)

Retrieve from SEC EDGAR the following filings: 1 SC13D and 2 SC13D/A made by Icahn for Netflix. Identify the date when the reported event happened and read through the item 4 to learn the reason of the event.

Search for news on the web during the time of the campaign (tweets, press releases).

Use this information to write a small report to explain what happened and what was the market reaction to these events.

Answer the following questions:

1.   In your opinion, what are the reasons why Netflix’s board adopted a poison pill following Icahn’s disclosure?

2.   How did the adoption (and later termination) of the poison pill affect shareholder value and market perception?

3.   Discuss whether Icahn’s activism in Netflix was consistent with Icahn’s typical activist strategy.

Each part should follow a clear academic structure, including an introduction, data collection, methodology, empirical findings and discussion, conclusion.

Please, reference your sources appropriately. All references must be listed at the end of the paper, using the ‘Harvard’ referencing system.

Tables, figures, and the reference list are not included in the word count.

Submitting your Report

Submit your report in .pdf (preferably) or in .doc

Please, name your submission as follows: StudentID_ACCFIN5219.

Your coursework will be processed through Turnitin for similarity checking. You can submit a draft of your coursework to Turnitin before submitting your final copy.