Global Equity Markets: The Case of Royal Dutch and Shell

Kenneth A. Froot; Andre F. Perold

Case | HBS Case Collection | March 1996 (Revised April 2006)

Global Equity Markets: The Case of Royal Dutch and Shell

Abstract

Royal Dutch and Shell common stocks are securities with linked cash flow, so that the ratio of their stock prices should be fixed. In fact, the ratio is highly variable, moving with the markets where the securities are intensively traded. Royal Dutch trades more actively in the Netherlands and U.S. markets, whereas Shell trades more actively in the United States. The result is that the Royal Dutch/Shell relative price moves positively with the Netherlands and U.S. markets and negatively with the U.K. market. The ability to arbitrage these disparities and their causes are major case focal points.

Keywords: international equity markets; international cost of capital; cross-border valuation; International Finance; Equity; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Cash Flow;

Format: Print

19 pages

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Citation:

Froot, Kenneth A., and Andre F. Perold. "Global Equity Markets: The Case of Royal Dutch and Shell." Harvard Business School Case 296-077, March 1996. (Revised April 2006.)

Activist investors Carl Icahn and Barry Rosenstein acquire a stake in Oklahoma-based company Kerr-McGee. They demand two board seats and ask the company to make several operational and financial changes, including the repurchase of equity and divestiture of their chemicals business. The case protagonist, Luke Corbett, CEO, opposes these changes.

Article | Journal of Financial Economics | July 2017

What Do Measures of Real-Time Corporate Sales Tell Us About Earnings Surprises and Post-announcement Returns?

Kenneth A. Froot, Namho Kang, Gideon Ozik and Ronnie Sadka

We develop real-time proxies of retail corporate sales from multiple sources, including approximately 50 million mobile devices. These measures contain information from both the earnings quarter (within quarter) and the period between that quarter's end and the earnings announcement date (post quarter). Our within-quarter measure is powerful in explaining quarterly sales growth, revenue surprises, and earnings surprises, generating average excess returns at announcement of 3.4%. However, surprisingly, our post-quarter measure is related negatively to announcement returns and positively to post-announcement returns. When post-quarter private information is directionally strong, managers, at announcement, provide guidance and use language that points statistically in the opposite direction. This effect is more pronounced when, post-announcement, management insiders trade. We conclude managers do not fully disclose their private information and instead message to shareholders and analysts something of opposite sign. The data suggest they may be motivated in part by subsequent personal stock-trading opportunities.

Keywords: Announcements; Business Earnings; Sales; Retail Industry;

Citation:

Froot, Kenneth A., Namho Kang, Gideon Ozik, and Ronnie Sadka. "What Do Measures of Real-Time Corporate Sales Tell Us About Earnings Surprises and Post-announcement Returns?" Journal of Financial Economics 125, no. 1 (July 2017): 143–162. (Revised from NBER Working Paper No. 22366, June 2016, Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 16-123, April 2016.) View Details

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Global Equity Markets: The Case of Royal Dutch and Shell

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