Author Description

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.