We find that a firm’s stock price drops when its compensation peer firm announces a severe say-on-pay voting failure. This price drop causes a reduction in the focal firm CEO’s pay in the following period. The effect on CEO pay is stronger when the board of directors is more powerful, when the proxy advisor holds a negative view of the CEO’s pay, and when the hired compensation consultant is less reputable. Directors who cut their CEO’s pay following the price drop receive more voting support from investors than other directors. Our findings show that the peer firm’s voting failure induces a market-feedback effect for focal firm directors.

Institutional common ownership of firm pairs in the same industry increases the likelihood of a preexisting social connection among their CEOs. We establish this relationship using a quasi-natural experiment that exploits institutional mergers combined with firms’ hiring events and detailed information on CEO biographies. In addition, for peer firms, gaining a CEO connection from a hiring firm’s CEO appointment correlates with higher returns on assets, stock market returns, and decreasing product similarity between companies. We find evidence consistent with common owners allocating CEO connections to shape managerial decisionmaking and increase portfolio firms’ performance.

This paper investigates the impact of manager-investor interaction quality on stock returns by utilizing an online IPO roadshow dataset and leveraging a word-embedding model. We find that such interactions are positively valued, as reflected in initial returns. The effect is particularly pronounced for firms characterized by higher levels of information asymmetry, greater investor attention, increased question uncertainty, or discussions on topics not covered in prospectus. Additionally, our research reveals that effective management communication leads to increased first-day turnover rates and thus higher returns. These heightened returns persist up to 180 days following the IPO, without displaying a significant long-term reversal associated with interaction quality. These findings underscore the meaningful impact of the quality of manager-investor interactions on firm valuation.