CEO Turnover, Information Uncertainty, and Debt Contracting

We examine how CEO turnover and changes in information uncertainty affect the price and non-price terms of bank loan contracts. Firms face worsened loan terms following the departure of a CEO. Interestingly, the negative effect that CEO departures have on loan terms largely stems from forced CEO turnovers. Following forced CEO departures, firms pay higher loan spreads, see an increase in covenants, and are more likely to be subject to collateral requirements, when compared to voluntary turnover and non-turnover matched firms. We find that changes in information uncertainty helps to explain the observed worsened terms following these dismissals. Furthermore, a superior capital market information environment helps to mitigate the adverse effect of the forced departure on bank loan terms and weakens the channel effect of accounting information quality. Our results are robust to a number of controls for endogeneity and outline the importance of public information for bank loan contracting.