Abstract

This thesis first examines the short-term market- and risk-adjusted abnormal returns and their determinants around the announcement and effective dates for a sample of 37 business trust conversions from the period from January 1998 until September 2006. While positive and significant abnormal returns are associated with both event dates, the abnormal returns associated with the effective conversion dates are much smaller in magnitude and are not robust. The only empirically supported explanation for the market impact of trust conversion announcements is the tax savings associated with conversion to an income trust. The longer-term market- and risk-adjusted returns are then examined around the trust conversion announcements. Based on an examination of the Jensen alpha estimates for each of the three years before and after the trust conversion announcements, the average trust conversion exhibits positive abnormal returns in all six years but the abnormal returns are only significant in the year prior to the trust-conversion announcement and in the second year after the announcement. Thus, the evidence supports the conjecture that the market deems trust conversions as value-enhancing events