Inside the 'Black Box' of Private In-House Meetings

51 Pages Posted: 11 Jul 2017 Last revised: 29 Nov 2017

See all articles by Robert M. Bowen

Robert M. Bowen

Chapman University - The George L. Argyros School of Business & Economics; University of Washington - Foster School of Business

Shantanu Dutta

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT)

Songlian Tang

CUNY Baruch College; East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST)

PengCheng Zhu

University of San Diego

Date Written: July 22, 2017

Abstract

We examine information content and related insider trading around private in-house meetings between corporate insiders and investors and analysts. We use a hand-collected dataset of approximately 17,000 private meeting summary reports of Shenzhen Stock Exchange firms over 2012–2014. We find that these private meetings are informative and corporate insiders conducted over one-half of their stock sales (totaling $8.7 billion) around these meetings. Some insiders time their transactions and earn substantial gains by selling (purchasing) relatively more shares before bad (good) news disclosures while postponing selling (purchasing) when good (bad) news is to be disclosed in the meeting. Finally, we conduct a content analysis of published meeting summary reports and find that the tone in these reports is associated with stock market reactions around (1) private meetings themselves, (2) subsequent public release of private meeting details, (3) subsequent earnings announcements and (4) future stock performance.

Keywords: disclosure, private meetings, private information, insider trading, content analysis

JEL Classification: G14, G18, M41

Suggested Citation

Bowen, Robert M. and Dutta, Shantanu and Tang, Songlian and Tang, Songlian and Zhu, Phil, Inside the 'Black Box' of Private In-House Meetings (July 22, 2017). Review of Accounting Studies, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2997357 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2997357

Robert M. Bowen

Chapman University - The George L. Argyros School of Business & Economics ( email )

1 University Drive
Orange, CA 92866
United States
206.334.0911 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/robert-bowen

University of Washington - Foster School of Business ( email )

Box 353226
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3226
United States
206.334.0911 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://foster.uw.edu/faculty-research/directory/robert-bowen/

Shantanu Dutta

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) ( email )

2000 Simcoe Street North
Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7K4
Canada

Songlian Tang

East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) ( email )

Shanghai
China

CUNY Baruch College ( email )

17 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10021
United States

Phil Zhu (Contact Author)

University of San Diego ( email )

5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
United States

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