Performance commitment has become the basic feature of M&A of listed companies in China. However, under this upsurge, default events also occur frequently, prompting people to think about the real motivation behind performance commitment. Based on the data of high-frequency transactions in China capital market, this paper analyzes the influence of performance commitment on institutional and individual investors in terms of capital flow and investment income from the perspective of wealth transfer and signal transmission.
It is found that after the announcement of performance commitment information, small and medium-sized investors will buy more shares of M&A enterprises, and their investment returns will be negative and they will suffer huge losses. However, large investors significantly reduced their positions, the investment income was significantly positive, and the wealth effect shifted significantly between large and small investors. Further research also finds that the wealth transfer effect of performance commitment breach and voluntary performance commitment M&A is more different, which shows that performance commitment is more to realize information advantage in the name of protection mechanism.
In-depth analysis shows that companies with higher information transparency and better protection of investors' interests will better suppress the differences in wealth transfer effects, and the information advantages and informed trading behaviors of large investors will converge.