Professor of Finance and Head of Group Accounting & Finance
Roles and Responsibilities
Head of Group, Accounting & Finance (August 2024 -- now)
Deputy Head of Group, Accounting & Finance (August 2022 -- July 2024)
Programme Director, MSc Accounting & Finance (Jauary 2022 -- July 2022)
Research Chamption, Finance (August 2020 -- July 2022)
Background
Leonidas is a Professor of Finance at the University of Edinburgh Business School, where he currently serves as Head of Group Accounting & Finance. He joined Edinburgh in 2019 as an Associate Professor (Reader) of Finance, having previously held the position of Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) of Finance at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. Before that, he was an Assistant Professor of Financial Economics in the School of Economics and Finance at the University of St Andrews.
He is also a Visiting Professor of Finance at CUNEF Universidad (Madrid), the University of Bergamo (Italy), and ALBA Graduate Business School (Athens). Leonidas has additionally held visiting professorships at several leading international institutions, including NYU Leonard N. Stern School of Business (New York), Harvard Business School (Massachusetts), the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary (Virginia), the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University (Virginia), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), and the University of Vienna (Austria).
Leonidas’ research lies primarily in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, empirical asset pricing, and market microstructure. He also has active interests in behavioural finance, climate finance, household finance, and monetary policy. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Southwestern Finance Association Best Paper Award in Corporate Finance and the Yuki Arai Faculty Research Prize for the Best Faculty Research Paper in Finance at NYU Stern. He is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and serves as an Associate Editor of the International Review of Financial Analysis.
BSc (University of Piraeus; LSE), MSc (University of Durham), D.Phil (University of Durham), PgCert (University of Durham).
Research Interests
- Asset Pricing
- Behavioral Finance
- Corporate Finance
- Dynamic Games and Contracts
- Auctions and Market Design
- Consumer and Public Finance
- Microeconometrics
Selected Publications
- Market Efficiency When Machines Access Information
w/ Rui Dai, Talis Putnins and Anthony Saunders
Accepted, Management Science - The Investment Effects of Dark Trading
w/ Talis Putnins and Khaladdin Rzayev
Forthcoming, Journal of Financial Markets - The Fed Information Shocks and the Market for Corporate Control: Predictive and Causal Effects
w/ Samer Adra and Anthony Saunders
Journal of Corporate Finance, 90, February 2025, 102681 - Connected Acquirers and Advisors and M&A Outcomes
w/ Yizhe Dong, Chang Li and Haoyu Li
British Journal of Management, 36: 597-614, 2025 - The Informational Consequences of Good and Bad Mergers
w/ Samer Adra
Journal of Corporate Finance, 78, February 2023, 102310 - Monetary Shocks and the Analyst Coverage of the Firm
w/ Samer Adra
Economics Letters, 218, September 2022, 110776 - The Real Effects of Earnout Contracts in M&As
w/ Jo Danbolt
Journal of Financial Research, 44(3), Fall 2021 - Macroeconomic News and Acquirer Returns in M&As: The Impact of Investor Alertness
w/ Samer Adra and Anthony Saunders
Journal of Corporate Finance, 64, October 2020, 101583 - The Impact of Monetary Policy on M&A Outcomes
w/ Samer Adra and Anthony Saunders
Journal of Corporate Finance, 62, June 2020, 101529 - Liquidity and Information Asymmetry Considerations in Public Target Acquisitions
w/ Samer Adra
European Journal of Finance, 25(2), November 2018 - Earnout Deals: Method of Initial Payment and Acquirers’ Gains
w/ Krishna Paudyal and Sudi Sudarsanam
Best Paper Award in Corporate Finance, Southwestern Finance Association (SWFA) Annual Meeting, March 2013, Albuquerque, NM, USA
European Financial Management, 24(5), November 2018 - The Role of Earnout Financing on the Valuation Effects of Global Diversification
w/ Jo Danbolt and Dimitris Alexakis
Journal of International Business Studies, 49, July 2018 - The Valuation Effects of Investor Attention in Stock-Financed Acquisitions
w/ Samer Adra
Journal of Empirical Finance, 45, January 2018 - Earnout Financing in the Financial Services Industry
w/ Phil Molyneux and John O.S. Wilson
International Review of Financial Analysis, 47, October 2016 - Legal Systems and Gains from Cross-Border Acquisitions
w/ Krishna Paudyal and Gioia Pescetto
Journal of Business Research, 65(9), September 2012 - Determinants of Earnout as Acquisition Payment Currency and Bidder’s Value Gains
w/ Sudi Sudarsanam
Journal of Banking & Finance, 36(3), March 2012
Selected Working Papers
- Anchoring Bias and CBA Premia
w/ Jo Danbolt - Do Financial Advisors Reduce the Need for Earnouts?
w/ Carlo D’Augusta and Luca Viarengo - Target Financial Constraints and Earnout Contracts
w/ Jo Danbolt and Sarah Nechbaoui - Earnout Agreements: Dealing with Uncertainty in M&A
w/ Annalisa Prencipe and Luca Viarengo - Earnouts in M&As: An Overview of Theoretical Concepts and Empirical Evidence
w/ Luca Viarengo