Debt Analysts' Views of Debt-Equity Conflicts of Interest

TABLE 4
Timing of other events relative to debt analysts’ conflict discussion
This table presents the frequency of actual conflict events around the publication date of debt analysts’ reports with
conflict discussions. We retrieve announcement dates of these events from Thompson One (formerly SDC
Platinum). For example, the first row shows that for 18.19% of these reports with conflict discussions, firms
announced M&A-related activity in the period ranging from 30 to 3 trading days before the report. Approximately
1.52% of conflict-discussion reports are contemporaneous (i.e., day -2 to +2) with a firm’s M&A announcement.
For 17.32% of these debt analyst reports with conflict discussions, firms announced M&A-related activity in the
period from 3 to 30 days after the report.
Day 0 = Date of Debt Analyst’s Report with a Conflict Discussion
Before During After
Announcement (Day -30 to -3) (Day -2 to +2) (Day +3 to +30)
M&A 18.19% 1.52% 17.32%
Repurchase 1.07% 0.21% 1.37%
Dividend 15.60% 1.42% 16.48%
Rating Change 5.78% 0.72% 6.23%
Watchlist 6.37% 0.79% 6.42%
57