In our recent working paper, When Do CEOs Have Covenants Not to Compete in Their Employment Contracts?, we undertake the first comprehensive study of contractual restrictions on CEOs’ post-employment competitive activities. The large random sample of nearly 1,000 CEO employment contracts for 500 companies was selected from the S&P 1500 from the 1990s through 2010. We find that about 70% of CEO contracts have post-employment competitive restrictions. We also find more covenants not to compete (CNCs or noncompetes) in longer-term employment contracts and at profitable firms. In addition, our study uses a nuanced state-by-state CNC strength of enforcement index to test the variance of CEO noncompetes across jurisdictions.

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In the paper, Accounting Standards and Debt Covenants: Has the “Balance Sheet Approach” Led to a Decline in the Use of Balance Sheet Covenants?, forthcoming in the Journal of Accounting and Economics as published by Elsevier, I examine whether the “balance sheet approach” has led to a decline in the use of balance sheet covenants. Debt contracts, and especially private loan agreements, frequently include accounting-based debt covenants. Many of these covenants require the borrower to maintain a threshold level of some financial ratio or measure. A broad range of financial measures are employed in these financial covenants. Some are written on earnings from the income statement; the borrower may be required to maintain a minimum level of earnings relative to their interest expense (interest coverage) or their total debt (debt-to-earnings). Similarly, covenants are also written on values from the balance sheet; these include covenants requiring a minimum level for the book value of equity (net worth) or a maximum amount of debt in the capital structure (leverage). If the borrower fails to maintain a covenant threshold, the debt enters technical default. In technical default, the creditor has the option to attempt action against the borrower; a common consequence is renegotiation with stricter contract terms.

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In the paper, Capital versus Performance Covenants in Debt Contracts, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we propose a simple classification of financial covenants into two distinct groups: performance covenants and capital covenants. Performance covenants rely on measures of profitability and efficiency whereas capital covenants rely on information about sources and uses of capital, i.e., balance sheet information. We argue that capital covenants align incentives between borrowers and lenders by limiting the amount of debt in the borrower’s capital structure. In contrast, performance covenants act as tripwires that transfer control to lenders when performance deteriorates and hence incentive conflicts between shareholders and lenders become more acute.

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