Valuation-Driven Profit Transfer among Corporate Segments

This paper investigates whether the desire to achieve higher equity valuations induces conglomerates to manipulate their segment earnings. I extend the Stein (1989) model to a multi-segment setting and show that conglomerates have incentives to transfer profits from segments operating in industries with lower valuation multiples to those with higher multiples, even if the market is not fooled in equilibrium. If companies engage in such manipulation, segments with relatively high (low) valuations should report abnormally high (low) profits. The empirical tests confirm this prediction and further show that the relation is stronger for firms with more dispersed segment valuations. Finally, this paper also demonstrates that the simple sum-of-the parts valuation with multiples tends to overestimate the enterprise values for conglomerates, and the measurement errors increase with segment valuation dispersions.