Firm Valuation Effects of the Expatriation of U.S. Corporations to Tax-Haven Countries

Abstract

U.S. corporations that reorganize in tax-haven countries claim to save many millions of dollars in future U.S. corporate income taxes. However, because these “inversion” transactions may involve significant nontax costs, it is not obvious how they affect share value. We use Monte Carlo sampling to analyze the statistical significance of each inverting firm's abnormal returns around the date that it initially announced its intentions and board of director approval of an inversion transaction. We find that five of the 20 single-company expatriations in our analysis have significant negative announcement period returns and only two show significant positive returns. The remaining 13 inversions show no statistically significant market reaction in the announcement period. The average return in the announcement period across all 20 firms is negative, but not significantly different from zero. Overall, we do not detect obvious shareholder benefits from expatriations.