特殊目的公司在合併與併購中的操 縱股價行為

Security Price Manipulation in Mergers and Acquisitions via Special Purpose Vehicles

本論文提出「特殊目的公司」在計畫收購另一家公司的情況下，公司應區分高風險資產與提報合理使用資產之問題。本論文認為，以普遍的公司合法目的而論，有採用「特殊目的公司」之需要；尤其旨在簡化和闡明特定資產的風險回報機制以迎合投資者的利益。然而，本論文也認為，擔保公司和「特殊目的公司」之間未載明的連動關係亦是攸關投資者決策的已知因素，而此因素無可避免地將會影響風險回報之計算。在這種情況下，有些投資者具有優勢，因為他們的只考慮「特殊目的公司」，也就是他們的投資工具本身。但是，對於那些欲考慮擔保公司的表現之投資者來說，如果該公司沒有將資產列在其帳簿上，則同樣的考量將是個顯著的盲點。當「特殊目的公司」的目的是將高風險資產與其總分類帳隔離時，儘管是合法的，公司實行隱匿財報的結果，即是膨脹了公司股票價格的有效長期預測。反過來看，由於在收購另一家公司的情況下發生風險回報資訊扭曲，將會有效地使後者變得較便宜。這樣的結果是導致標的公司在收購過程中被人為地低估，因而成為顯著類型的市場失敗。本論文於結論中提出此類扭曲交易的解決之道。

This article addresses the question of special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) as used legitimately with the aim of segregating high-risk assets from the reportable assets of a company in the context of the prospective acquisition of another company. The article argues the need for SPVs for a broad range of legitimate company purposes, notably those that seek to simplify and clarify the risk-reward equation for specific assets for the investor's benefit. They article also argues, however, that the unstated linkage between the sponsoring company and the SPV is a known factor in investors' decisions, which inevitably affects the risk-reward calculation. In this scenario, investors have an advantage, because their starting point of awareness is of the SPV itself, which is their investment vehicle. The same issue is a significant disadvantage to those investors who seek to consider the merit of the sponsoring company, however, if that company has refrained from listing the asset on its books. When the SPV's purpose is to segregate high-risk assets from its general ledger, the result of the company's ability to hide it, legitimate as it is, is to inflate the effective long-term projection of the company's stock price. In turn, as this distortion of risk-reward information plays out in the case of the acquisition of another company, it effectively renders the latter cheaper. The result is an artificial undervaluation of the target company in an acquisition process, hence a significant form of market failure. The article concludes with solutions to remedy this distortion.