Managers, Workers, and Corporate Control

If management has high private benefits and owns a small equity stake, managers and workers are natural allies against a takeover threat. Two forces are at play. First, managers can transform employees into a "shark repellent" through long-term labor contracts and thereby reduce the firm's attractiveness to a raider. Second, employees can act as ``white squires''\ for the incumbent managers: to protect their high wages, they resist hostile takeovers, by refusing to sell their shares to the raider or by lobbying against the takeover. The model predicts that wages are inversely correlated with the incumbent's equity stake, and decline after a takeover