When Do Analysts Add Value? Evidence from Corporate Spinoffs

The impact of financial analysts on capital market efficiency has been much debated in academia and in practice. A large body of academic research finds that analysts act as important information intermediaries who contribute to the overall efficiency of capital markets. Other research, however, has identified contexts in which the value of analyst coverage may be relatively more limited, such as when analysts face possible conflicts of interest, or when the company or situation they are presented with is especially complex. Still other research questions the informativeness of analyst recommendations in light of regulatory changes. In this paper, HBS doctoral graduate Emilie Rose Feldman and professors Stuart C. Gilson and Belén Villalonga examine 1,793 analyst reports written at the time of corporate spinoffs to determine how much value analysts create as information intermediaries in this setting. Spinoffs provide an interesting context for this purpose because the degree of information asymmetry between corporate insiders and investors is especially high. The paper is one of the first to provide very fine-grained detail on the quantity and types of analyses included in analyst reports.

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