Professor Alan Gregory

About me:

Alan Gregory is an Emeritus Professor of Finance at the University of Exeter Business School. Prior to taking up this position, he held professorial positions at both the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the University of Glasgow. In addition to his position at Exeter, he was a full panel member of the Competition Commission for two successive for year terms until September 2009 and is now External Advisor to the Competition and Markets Authority's Cost of Capital Group.

His consulting experience includes acting as advisor to one of the largest accounting firms on a number of issues, advising HM Treasury, and consulting for fund managers on investment strategies and asset allocation strategies. His most recent work has invlved providing expert witness analyses in relation to the 2020/1 water company appeals to the CMA. His work at the Competition Commission involved being a panel member on a number of inquiries, including a regulatory inquiry into airport pricing, market inquiries into domestic bulk liquid petroleum gas and the UK grocery market, and merger inquiries relating to the GUS / Littlewoods mail order operations and the takeover bids for the London Stock Exchange by Euronext and Deutsche Börse. In addition, he has acted as a consultant to other inquiries including the mobile phone and storecards inquiries. He has also undertaken expert witness work for the Treasury Solicitors’ Department, and in connection with Australian Gas Distribution pricing cases.

He was a panel member of the UoA 19 Research Evaluation Framework exercise for the 2014 REF.

He is now managing director of AGRF Ltd, a consultancy firm specialising in issues relating to cost of capital and profitability measurement.

Nationality: Welsh

My research interests are as follows:

1. The empirical estimation of cost of capital, which has included the award of a an ESRC Grant of approximately £300k (started in December 2012, completed in December 2016). Outputs to date include a recent JBFA paper the empirical testing of the Fama-French and Carhart models in the UK, and a paper on beta estimation published in 2018. Both these papers are with Dr Rajesh Tharyan and Dr Shan Hua, with whom I provided downloadable data on Fama-French style portfolios and factors for the UK and the ESRC grant is, inter alia, to support the regular updating of these data for benefit of UK academic researchers via the Xfi website. I was lead researcher on the grant with three other co-researchers at Exeter.
2. The general area of market-based empirical research, particularly with regard to the robustness of conclusions that can be drawn from such studies in the light of documented risk factors. At present, this interest principally focuses upon the areas of take-overs and mergers together with returns to, and valuation of, corporate social responsibility agendae. Related work has focused on market reaction to directors’ trading activity, and the success of initial public offerings. A Leverhulme research grant of approximately £78K funding work on directors' dealing around takeovers was completed in 2010.
3. My interest in CSR has included two studies of the performance of ethical and non-ethical UK unit trusts which were published in the Journal of Business Finance and Accounting (JBFA). Latest work is investigating the returns to, and market valuation of, CSR in relation to the US and two papers have been published in Journal of Business Ethics on this theme. A final paper on earnings persistence and firm value was recently published in JBFA.
4. I have had a long standing interest in the long run returns to UK acquirers. This led to me being invited to give a keynote paper at the 2015 ICAEW “Better Markets” Conference. The paper, “How far does financial reporting allow us to judge whether M&A activity is successful?” was published in Accounting and Business Research.

• MSc in Accounting and Finance (London School of Economics and Political Science, 1983)
• Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) (qualified in 1974); elected to associate membership 1978; elected to Fellowship 1986)
• Certificate in Education (1978).