Demutualisation, initial public offerings and long-run market performance of Canadian life insurance companies

Abstract

We examine alternative hypotheses for the demutualisation of a sample of Canadian life insurance companies (1999-2000) as well as short-run and long-run market effects of demutualisation on firm performance. Our results indicate that the Canadian insurance companies became more efficient after converting to publicly traded stock companies and that wealth expropriation was not the primary motive behind demutualisation. We also find that the stocks of the demutualised companies out-performed the market during the three year period after going public.