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Publications
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- Faculty Publications (782)
- December 2012
- Case
Trouble Brewing for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Michael Norris
In October 2011, noted hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital delivered a presentation at an investors' conference analyzing the business and accounting quality weaknesses of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Until then Green Mountain had exhibited rapid... View Details
Keywords: Accounting Fraud; Accounting Quality; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Restatements; Accounting Scandal; Accounting Information; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysts; Financial Analysis; Financial Intermediaries; Hedge Funds; Financial Ratios; Financial Statement Analysis; Valuation Methodologies; Earnings Quality; Accounting; Quality; Earnings Management; Valuation; Crime and Corruption; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Reporting; Investment Funds; Financial Statements; Food and Beverage Industry
- December 2012 (Revised November 2014)
- Case
W.R. Grace & Co.: Dealing with Asbestos Torts
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
A manufacturer of building products and specialty chemicals, W. R. Grace & Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 in response to a flood of lawsuits alleging that its products contained asbestos, and had caused hundreds of thousands of people to contract... View Details
Keywords: Bankruptcy Reorganization; Business Failures; Environmental Regulations; Class Action Lawsuits; Natural Environment; Valuation; Health Disorders; Capital Structure; Restructuring; Lawsuits and Litigation; Chemicals; Crisis Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Legal Liability; Construction Industry; Chemical Industry; United States
- Article
Agency Costs, Mispricing, and Ownership Structure
By: Sergey Chernenko, C. Fritz Foley and Robin Greenwood
Standard theories of corporate ownership assume that because markets are efficient, insiders ultimately bear all agency costs that they create and therefore have a strong incentive to minimize conflicts of interest with outside investors. We argue that if equity is... View Details
- December 2012
- Article
Estimating the Value of Connections to Vice-President Cheney
By: Rakesh Khurana, Raymond Fisman, Julia Galef and Yongxiang Wang
We estimate the market valuation of personal ties to Richard Cheney. Our proxies for personal ties are based on corporate board linkages that are prevalent in the network sociology literature. We consider a number of distinct political and personal events that either... View Details
- December 2012
- Article
How Much Is Sweat Equity Worth?
By: Christopher Marquis and Joshua D. Margolis
The article presents a case study of a business decision related to the valuing of sweat equity in a start-up business. One man starts a premium vodka business, bringing in his cousin at an early stage, but with no initial discussion of the eventual split of equity or... View Details
- Article
When Talk Is "Free": The Effect of Tariff Structure on Usage Under Two- and Three-Part Tariffs
By: Eva Ascarza, Anja Lambrecht and Naufel Vilcassim
In many service industries, firms introduce three-part tariffs to replace or complement existing two-part tariffs. In contrast with two-part tariffs, three-part tariffs offer allowances, or “free” units of the service. Behavioral research suggests that the attributes... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Search-Based Peer Firms: Aggregating Investor Perceptions Through Internet Co-Searches
By: Charles M.C. Lee, Paul Ma and Charles C.Y. Wang
Applying a "co-search" algorithm to Internet traffic at the SEC's EDGAR web-site, we develop a novel method for identifying economically-related peer firms and for measuring their relative importance. Our results show that firms appearing in chronologically adjacent... View Details
- November 2012
- Exercise
Coca-Cola: Residual Income Valuation Exercise
By: Suraj Srinivasan
The exercise illustrates the use of the residual income (also known as the abnormal earnings) valuation approach. Students are asked to provide a valuation of Coca-Cola Company using the residual income valuation methodology and understand how it maps into the... View Details
- November 2012
- Teaching Note
Brink's Company: Activists Push for a Spin-off (TN)
By: Suraj Srinivasan
The case this Teaching Note addresses studies the decision of the security services company Brink's Corporation to spin off its home security division from the rest of the company. The decision followed intense pressure on the company by three activist hedge funds that... View Details
- October 2012
- Case
Lin TV Corp
By: David Scharfstein, Erik Stafford and Joel Heilprin
This case considers the valuation of Lin TV, a publicly-traded company with 30 TV stations. The case highlights how a change in operating strategy can enhance the firm's value, and considers the effect of consolidation within the industry on firm value. View Details
- October 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Creating the First Public Law Firm: The IPO of Slater & Gordon Limited
By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield
Slater & Gordon (S&G), a midsized Australian law firm with a high-growth consolidation strategy, had an initial public offering (IPO) scheduled for May 2007. Due to a series of regulatory changes in Australia in recent years, the IPO provided an opportunity for S&G to... View Details
Keywords: IPO; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Law Firm; Value Drivers; Growth Strategy; Revenue Recognition; Roll-up; Consolidator; Initial Public Offering; Valuation; Consolidation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Strategy; Growth Management; Corporate Governance; Business Strategy; Legal Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Australia
- October 2012 (Revised June 2015)
- Case
Grantham, Mayo, and Van Otterloo, 2012: Estimating the Equity Risk Premium
- October 2012
- Article
The Effect of Reference Point Prices on Mergers and Acquisitions
By: Malcolm Baker, Xin Pan and Jeffrey Wurgler
Prior stock price peaks of targets affect several aspects of merger and acquisition activity. Offer prices are biased toward recent peak prices although they are economically unremarkable. An offer's probability of acceptance jumps discontinuously when it exceeds a... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised June 2017)
- Technical Note
Private Equity Valuation in Emerging Markets
By: Paul A. Gompers, Victoria Ivashina and Timothy Dore
This note provides an opportunity to understand how private equity investors need to adapt to emerging markets. View Details
- September 2012 (Revised September 2016)
- Background Note
Convertible Notes in Seed Financings
By: Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Robert F. White
This note introduces convertible notes in angel financing. It begins by delineating the differences between a priced and non-priced round. It then describes a specific example of a convertible note, with attention paid to technical details regarding valuation caps. View Details
- August 2012 (Revised July 2015)
- Background Note
A Note on Valuation in Private Equity
By: Paul A. Gompers
This note will provide an overview of valuation methodologies in private equity. View Details
- August 2012
- Course Overview Note
Introduction to Private Equity Finance
By: Paul A. Gompers and Paul A. Gompers
This note will aid in introducing students to the Private Equity Finance course. View Details
- 2012
- Article
Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs
By: Mozaffar N. Khan, Leonid Kogan and George Serafeim
In tests of the equity market timing theory of external finance, the prior literature has used overvaluation identifiers such as high market-to-book and high prior returns that are likely correlated with other determinants of SEOs. We use price pressure resulting from... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
FIN Around the World: The Contribution of Financing Activity to Profitability
By: Russell Lundholm, George Serafeim and Gwen Yu
We study how the availability of domestic credit influences the contribution that financing activities make to a firm's return on equity (ROE). Using a sample of 51,866 firms from 69 countries, we find that financing activities contribute more to a firm's ROE in... View Details