Socially Responsible Mutual Fund Exit Decisions

Abstract

This paper studies, for the first time, socially responsible (SR) mutual fund exits. We analyse a sample of 534 U.S. SR equity mutual funds in the period 2003–2017, in which 182 exit events occurred (53 liquidations, 109 mergers within the same family, and 20 mergers across different families). The results obtained indicate that both liquidations and mergers are more likely among smaller funds that suffer net money outflows in the previous year to the event. At the family level, mergers are more frequent in outperforming families with a larger number of funds, whereas liquidations occur in families with a lower number of funds. When comparing mergers within the same family with mergers across different families, we observe that the former share more drivers with liquidations than the latter. In addition, we observe that religious and environmental funds are more likely to suffer exit events than other SR fund types. Finally, other interesting findings point out that mergers financially benefit investors in merged SR mutual funds and the financial outcomes of acquiring fund investors are not jeopardized.