Death spiral convertibles

Abstract

Floating-priced convertibles, known as death spirals, are privately held convertible securities with a conversion price set at a discount from the average of past stock prices in a look-back period. The issuance of floating-priced convertibles is followed by significant negative abnormal returns. The results are consistent with the faulty contract hypothesis that argues that the contract design encourages short-selling by the convertible holders and other professional short sellers. However, the results are also consistent with the last-resort financing hypothesis that argues that the stock price declines because the stock is overvalued at the time of the issue.