Many chief executives stand to lose if they sell their companies, even when shareholders would reap a substantial premium. An analysis of executive compensation data for the S&P 1500 by Dow Jones Investment Banker and Shareholder Value Advisors also shows which chiefs would win, which would lose and how much of an incentive they have to support or oppose a sale.

If chief executives prefer deals that they think make them richer to deals that make them poorer -- an assumption consistent with both behavioural and classical economics -- the analysis also provides some clues to what it would take to motivate a target CEO to agree to a sale.