Economic Determinants of Legal Outcomes in Norwegian Public Compulsory Buyouts

Abstract

In this thesis, we ask what the economic determinants are for whether minority shareholders choose to reject the offer in a public compulsory buyout, and for the outcome in court. We have collected and constructed a dataset, from the year 2000 to 2020, of all public compulsory buyouts on the Oslo Stock Exchange, and from all three tiers of court. There has been a decreasing time trend in this period. We find that the size of the company, the duration of a controlling owner, and the liquidity of the stock are the most important determinants of minority owners rejecting a buyout offer. The courts tend to favor the minority and disregard the last transaction price of the stock.