Impact of CEO change on Stock Prices in Norwegian Companies.

Abstract

This thesis is a research on the impact of CEO change on stock prices in Norwegian companies listed on OSE. Using an event-study with a sample size of 110 observations, we analyze the abnormal returns and find that the CEO change does impact the stock returns. However, the impact differs depending on various variables. In this research paper, we have chosen to focus on 5 CEO attributes we believe would have the most impact, the gender, age, education level, appointing an interim CEO and appointing an insider. We find strong, negative and long-term relation between firm performance and appointing an interim CEO or an insider. For the remaining variables we found weak but positive short-term effect on the firm performance. Section 1: Introduction