Why Hire Your Rival? The Case of Bank Debt Underwriting David A. Becher Rachel E. Gordon Jennifer L. Juergens November 2015 ABSTRACT This paper details the previously undocumented debt underwriting relationship for financial firms. These firms are unique in that they are the only ones capable of underwriting their own securities. Public investment and commercial banks (“banks”) hire a rival in nearly 30% of their debt issuances and do so extensively across bank size, quality, and type. The decision to use a rival is related to expertise, information sharing, as well as bank-specific (capacity, distribution networks, and reputation) motivations and leads to higher fees. Collectively, these results provide new evidence of banks’ underwriter choice and show that banks pervasively hire their rivals. Keywords: Capital markets; debt issuance; banking; investment banks; underwriting JEL Codes: G21; G24; G32; G38 David A. Becher: Drexel University, Department of Finance, 3220 Market Street, Room 1127 and Fellow, Wharton Financial Institutions Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (215) 895-2274,
[email protected]. Rachel Gordon, University of Missouri, Department of Finance, 423 Cornell Hall, Columbia, MO 65211, (573) 882-4933,
[email protected]. Jennifer L. Juergens: Drexel University, Department of Finance, 3220 Market Street, Room 1128, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (215) 895-2308,
[email protected]. We would like to thank Audra Boone, Naveen Daniel, Diane Denis, Casey Dougal, Kathleen Hanley, Michelle Lowry, Greg Nini, Michael Pagano, Ralph Walkling, Josh White, Tina Yang, as well as seminar participants at Drexel University, Lehigh University, Loyola-Marymount University, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and Villanova University for their helpful comments.