Abstract
Dye [J Account Res 23 (1985) 123] showed that the optimal disclosure policy, when a manager is randomly endowed with perfect private information, is upper tailed, i.e., the manager only discloses firm value above an appropriate cutoff level. We interpret this strategically as an optimal exercise by management of the embedded formal option to report value. Given any disclosure cutoff level, we value the corresponding option using contingent claims analysis. It is shown that the Dye disclosure cutoff value maximizes the formal option value. We find it to be the minimum possible conditional valuation (conditioned by non-disclosure) which is thus consistent with the intuition that investors should value conservatively. We show how the Dye cutoff can be interpreted as a strike price in a ‘protective put’ which offers a shield against risk of disclosure of low value. The strategic analysis is further extended by allowing the probability level that the manager is informed to be a choice variable. We show that the manager will never choose to be perfectly endowed with information, and is likely to be more endowed than unendowed. We also present a simple worked example which shows how the total value of the firm changes once the Dye option is formally incorporated.
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Notes
This is a simplification: with N shares outstanding the price is V/N per share, the expected value per share purchased is μ/N and the expected gain per share purchased is \((\mu-V)/N.\)
To set the matter of simplicity in perspective, note that, if the manager is informed at the interim date and the circumstance is that he makes no disclosure, then the market value of the share is V, but the manager knows the realization is \(X=x < V\). That is, an over-valuation of \(V-x\) occurs. The manager can notionally realize this value increment and execute an arbitrage opportunity by being permitted to enter a short sale. In contrast, to the previous option to gamble, this particular trade may be deemed as taking unfair advantage of the market. When the distribution of firm value is uniform, the ex-ante expected value of the arbitrage opportunity per unit share is
$$ (1-p)\gamma\left(\gamma-\frac{\gamma}{2}\right) $$where \(\gamma=\gamma(p)\). The formula expresses the fact that the over-valuation occurs with probability \(q\gamma\) and the expected gain on a single short position is the difference between the interim price γ and the expected low realization which is the mid-point value γ/2. As a function of p this expression is again zero at the end-points p = 0 and p = 1 and is concave. Permitting this kind of trade would not alter the manager’s insider gains qualitatively. The interests of fairness and simplicity warrant exclusion of this extra term from consideration.
Strictly speaking, this is value per share permitted to be traded by the informed manager.
Recall that the ‘odds against’ this event are given by the ratio p/q; this ratio will be denoted λ.
Formally, the Fenchel dual of the concave function \(\Updelta(p)\) is the concave function of π given by
$$ \Updelta^{\ast}(\pi)=\inf_{p}[p\pi-\Updelta(p)]. $$
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Appendices
Appendix: proof of the marginal values theorem
Working from the identity
differentiation gives
so that
Since \(d{\mathbb{P}}(N(t))=qdF(t),\) we can write this explicitly as
where F(t) denotes the cumulative distribution function (for the probability law of the random variable X) and is assumed to be of the form
for some continuous f(x). Hence
Acknowledgement
We gratefully acknowledge the comments of Sudipto Bhattacharya, Nick Bingham and Bjorn Jorgensen.
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Ostaszewski, A.J., Gietzmann, M.B. Value creation with Dye’s disclosure option: optimal risk-shielding with an upper tailed disclosure strategy. Rev Quant Finan Acc 31, 1–27 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-007-0057-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-007-0057-4