Where are the Shareholders' Mansions? CEOs' Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance

Liu, Crocker H.; Yermack, David

doi:10.2139/ssrn.970413

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Where are the Shareholders' Mansions? CEOs' Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance

45 Pages Posted: 15 Mar 2007 Last revised: 22 Oct 2007

See all articles by Crocker H. Liu

David Yermack

New York University (NYU) - Stern School of Business

Date Written: October 17, 2007

Abstract

We study real estate purchases by major company CEOs, compiling a database of the principal residences of nearly every top executive in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. When a CEO buys real estate, future company performance is inversely related to the CEO's liquidation of company shares and options for financing the transaction. We also find that, regardless of the source of finance, future company performance deteriorates when CEOs acquire extremely large or costly mansions and estates. We therefore interpret large home acquisitions as signals of CEO entrenchment. Our research also provides useful insights for calibrating utility based models of executive compensation and for understanding patterns of Veblenian conspicuous consumption.

Keywords: residential real estate, insider trading, conspicuous consumption

JEL Classification: G32, R31

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Liu, Crocker H. and Yermack, David, Where are the Shareholders' Mansions? CEOs' Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance (October 17, 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=970413 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.970413