What Drives Sell-Side Analyst Compensation at High-Status Investment Banks?

Boris  Groysberg; Paul M. Healy; David A.  Maber

Article | Journal of Accounting Research | September 2011

What Drives Sell-Side Analyst Compensation at High-Status Investment Banks?

by Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and David A. Maber

Abstract

We use proprietary data from a major investment bank to investigate factors associated with analysts' annual compensation. We find compensation to be positively related to "All-Star" recognition, investment-banking contributions, the size of analysts' portfolios, and whether an analyst is identified as a top stock picker by The Wall Street Journal. We find no evidence that compensation is related to earnings forecast accuracy. But consistent with prior studies, we find analyst turnover to be related to forecast accuracy, suggesting that analyst forecasting incentives are primarily termination based. Additional analyses indicate that "All-Star" recognition proxies for buy-side client votes on analyst research quality used to allocate commissions across banks and analysts. Taken as a whole, our evidence is consistent with analyst compensation being designed to reward actions that increase brokerage and investment-banking revenues. To assess the generality of our findings, we test the same relations using compensation data from a second high-status bank and obtain similar results.

Keywords: Investment Banking; Research; Compensation and Benefits; Investment Portfolio; Forecasting and Prediction; Resource Allocation; Status and Position; Business Earnings; Quality; Revenue; Stocks; Voting;

Format: Print

32 pages

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Citation:

Groysberg, Boris, Paul M. Healy, and David A. Maber. "What Drives Sell-Side Analyst Compensation at High-Status Investment Banks?" Journal of Accounting Research 49, no. 4 (September 2011): 969–1000.

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This case centers around the Air Products' hostile takeover attempt of Airgas in 2010. Air Products argued that its offer of a 38% premium is generous given Airgas' poor performance, which Air Products attributed to underperforming and entrenched managers at Airgas. On the other hand, Airgas' management argued that the company's recent struggles are cyclical and that Air Products' offer grossly undervalues Airgas' long-run potential. How might Airgas' management credibly communicate its conviction to shareholders? Should Airgas shareholders side with Air Products and accept a certain short term return, or should they side with Airgas' management and accept an uncertain but potentially higher long-term outcome? How should the Airgas board balance its responsibilities to short-term versus long-term shareholders?

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What Drives Sell-Side Analyst Compensation at High-Status Investment Banks?

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