Make-whole call provisions: A case of “much ado about nothing?”

The topic of make-whole call provisions on bond issues remains a relatively unexplored area in modern finance literature, with the exception of Mann and Powers [Mann, S.V. and Powers, E.A., 2003, Indexing a Bond's Call Price: An Analysis of Make-whole Call Provisions, Journal of Corporate Finance 9(5), 535-554.]. This paper examines the corporate finance implications of including such a call feature in bond issuances, and how such issuances are different from bond issuances which are not callable, or which employ regular call features. We find that bond issuances employing make-whole call provisions (1) are accompanied by a significantly positive stock price reaction, (2) exhibit superior post-issuance stock returns, and (3) are associated with positive analyst revisions in the long-term growth rate of earnings. These results suggest that bond issuances which include make-whole call provisions are indeed very different from the other issuances, and are clearly not a case of “much ado about nothing”.