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Finance 401 Advanced Corporate Finance 

Hi!  Welcome to Advanced Corporate Finance!

The text book is Brealey and Myers Principles in Corporate Finance.  The newest edition.  I think it is the 7th.  I apologize up front for the price, but I can make it a bit better by telling you that we will also be using it for 402 and I highly recommend that you keep it for either other classes or for the real world as a reference.  It is VERY good.

Here is a link to the class blog

What is expected from you in class? 

     I have been told that I ask too much of students.  I do not think so, but I guess the reputation is not totally without merit.  I do ask that you keep up with the reading and to think.   I hate pure memorization  and try to challenge you to think and apply the material. 

Course Overview
This class is aimed at an audience that has already a basic financial background.  The class focuses on Corporate Finance but it is impossible to just look at corproate finance so there will be some (although limited) use of material from other classes. 

I definitely recommend that you review your 301 notes and ideally look over your stats as well. 

(btw For past students who are looking for notes on my website, this class is comparable to Fin305 at Penn State and somewhat comparable to Fin365 at JMU. )

Syllabus
 
  Finance 401 Fall 2004 Syllabus

Text
The text, Principles of Corporate Finance by Brealy and Myers has a very useful site .

If you do not have PowerPoint, you may need to download a PowerPoint viewer for the PowerPoint notes.

Outline and Notes

  1. Introduction--week 1&2
      Why Study Finance?
      Financial system overview
      Organizational Structure
      Corporate Finance 
      Firm as a Nexus of Contracts
      Human Nature (REMM)
      Stakeholders and conflicts of interest
      Monitoring and Corporate Governance
      For additional  POWERPOINT NOTES CLICK HERE

  1. Time Value of Money-Week 3 & 4--also Paul Astorino Guest speaker
    1. Present Value
      Future Value
Stock and Bond Valuation
      Excel spreadsheet with examples (and duration)
      Convexity spreadsheet
      Credit risk
             Bond pricing Questions-Submitted
                      Bond Pricing Spreadsheet-to be used to answer questions
      THANKS ADAM!!!

      Review of Ratios
              
      DCF vs Comparables

  1.  Historical Returns ---what we know and what we do not know
      Discounted Cash Flows
                     Accounting or Finance
                     How to Find Cash Flow
                     Projecting Cash flows--the spreadsheet will be modified but here it is to start
    Differences
      Proforma Statements-Pro Forma Assignment
               Additional Funds Needed (AFN )
Keeping in mind that the RHS of the Balance sheet must always equal the LHS, we can make a simpliefied analysis of how much we will need to raise to support a certain sales level.
This is done by assuming the ratios will remain the same.  For example, teh assets to sales ratio will stay the same.  Thus when we have a forecasted change in slaes we can determine what sales, liabilities, and equity will change by.
AFN= Additional funds needed

AFN = Required Increase in Assets
            - Spontaneous increase in liabilities
            -Increased in Retained Earnings

Increase in assets=(Assets/Sales)*change in Sales
Spontaneous Increase in liabilities =  (Liabilities/Sales)*Change in sales

Increase in retained earnings = (Net Margin*Sales)(1- payout ratio)

      What LT financing is available? (Chpt 14)
      http://www.financeprofessor.com/mba610/chapt14.htm
      Chapter 25: the Many Kinds of Debt
      Chapter 24: Valuing Debt

  1. Market Efficiency
Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH )
A list of Anomalies from Investorhome.com
Why do these anomalies exist?  If we knew they wouldn't be anomalies.

Papers on Market Efficiency
Virtually every finance paper has some discussion of market efficiency but some of the more inportant paperws devited soley to the topic include Ray Ball's Theory of Stock Market Efficiency: accomplishments and limitations.  It is published as part of Chew's The New Corporate Finance.  Additionally Fama, 1991,  has an excellent summary article on market efficiency.   Both of these are summarized on my summaries page.

Possibly less academic in nature but more convincing in reality is the fact that so few people or mutual funds either in the US, or abroad,  actually beat the market on a risk adjusted basis.
Some other links that should help you with market efficiency
Investopedia.com has some notes
Martin Swell has complied some notes on efficeint markets that are quite good!  (there I tried to be British) ;-)
Dean Lebaron has a very good look at the EMH--largely from his book which I HIGHLY recommend!
      What about the Superstars--Buffett et al?
      http://www.financeprofessor.com/introcorpfinnotes/superstars.html

      Insider Trading

      A report from ABC NEWS on Insider Trading-why it won't link is beyond me
      http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/insidertrading_020624.html

How the SEC Defines Insider Trading
      Most studies show that insiders do beat the market, so it is not surprising that people watch insider trades. However, more tend to be sells than buys.  Why? 
MoneyCentral has a tool that allows investors to see if insiders have been buying or selling. and of course there is the SEC's Edgar.

To list all academic research on insier trading is beyond the scope of this class, but Bainbridge's look at Insider trading has a great Bibliography and literature review!  Additionally there is insider trading and then there  is insider trading.  A look at Yermack's paper

Efficient, not omniscient
Although many in finance now believe that markets are efficient, it is not unanimous.   One group of these people are technical analysts.  These people believe they can predict price movements based on historical prices (a clear violation of weak form efficiency).   Although the vast majority of academic papers finds no benefit to technical analysis, it has long been difficult to explain why there are technical analysts around (how can we say the market is inefficient in keeping technical analysts while say it is efficient in other things).  Several recent academic papers have at least suggested that technical analysis might not be worthless.  While others have followed with some excellent research, the main person here to remember is Lo.  He has had two very good articles on technical analysis.  To see the background try this from the Review of Financial Studies.   He also has a JF paper with Mamaysky, Wang (JF)--abstract   that concludes that technical analysis may not be as bad as we previously thought.

Here are some interesting links on technical analysis
The Equity Research Center has a nice page decribing the differences between technical and fundamental analysis
Marketscreen.com has a good review of what techincal analysis is and even provides some examples
Dean LeBaron should teach: He is interesting, looks at both sides, and usually gets it right! Here is his take on technical analysis.

Another big challenge to market efficiency (and the implied assumption of investor rationality) is behavorial finance.  It is one of the hottest fields in finace now and there is mounting evidence suggests that investors sometime act irrationally.  This may or may not be a problem.  Remember that certain investors can act irrationally so long as the marginal investor (the one who sets the price) does not.  However, as the evidence grows, many (including myself) are acknowledging that behavioral finance does play a role in how finance works.  (That said, many of the behavioral finance stories can be refuted or at least questioned.--see Fama 98?) .
          
From the FinananceProfessor.com blog
       Brav, Heaton, and Rosenberg--both sides have merits
       Charoenrook-Sentiment may matter
       Fehle, Tsyplakov, and Zdorovtsov--On stock returns to Super Bowl Advertisers

Links on Behavorial finance
Behavourialfinace.net
Stanford provides a nice intro and even some examples
A working paper by Barberis-Thaler
The top ten behavorial finance downloads from FEN (updated monthly)

  1. Diversification and Portfolio math
  1.      Pricing Models : Useful, important, bu probably wrong.....
      CAPM, Other Pricing models
      CAPM sample problems (and answers)
      APT


      In many ways we now will make a change and head back into pure corporate finance
  1. Capital Budgeting-NPV is #1!!!!!!
    1. Theory
      Without risk, With risk
      Various methods
      Risk revisted: What is correct measure? Stand-alone, project, company, or market?   
 Economic Value Added--Stern Stewart's EVA

  1. Capital Structure Notes


    1. Capital Structure and Security Issuance -these are from a previous version of this class.  Good, but not as up to date.
      WACC -computation and problems
      If not WACC, then what?  Each project should have its own discount rate. WACC is good for valuing overall firm, but that is about it.  Well if the project has the same riskas the average risk of the firm, then ok but that is an exception. .


      Security Issuance


      MM and does capital structure matter?

Does the Pecking Order still hold?  A mini lesson. An update:  A series of recent papers have suggested that market timing, the pecking order, and the tradeoff theory all work in unison.   Papers by Mayer and Sussman, Alti, and Flannery and Rangan
So maybe we wrote off the pecking order too soon!


What else influences the type of debt a firm uses?

Denis and Mihov find that the largest determinant is the credit rating of the firm. In their
JFE article, they report that high quality firms are more likely to opt for a public issuance while medium rated firms take the
bank debt route and low credit rated firms go for private debt placements. However, credit quality is by no means the only
determinant.
http://jfe.rochester.edu/02195.pdf

For example (Barclay and Smith 1995) report that riskier firms use shorter term debt and Petersen and Rajan 1994 found that bank relationships are especially important for smaller firms.
Kisgen reports that managers manage capital structure in a way to prevent downgrades and to get upgrades. For instance firms that "are
near a change in credit rating" make moves to improve their rating by issuing less debt and retiring more debt.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=355680

Want still more on debt financing? Ok, but only since you are nice. ;)  Baker, Greenwood, and Wurgler report in a JFE piece that firms also time debt obligations. When long-term rates are low, the firms try to capture these “low” rates, by issuing longer-term debt. Which, while not
surprising, may be further evidence that market efficiency is not market perfection and that the financing waves we see may make sense (and
cents) after all.
http://jfe.rochester.edu/02219.pdf
http://207.36.165.114/NewOrleans/Papers/2001114.pdf

In a Modigliani and Miller world when corporate taxes are introduced, the optimal debt level increases. Desai, Foley, and Hines have a cool
paper that finds, among other things, that this positive relationship between tax rates and interest does hold. FWIW one of the “other
things” that influences debt financing is the interest rate: the higher the interest rate, the less debt firms use, which fits nicely with the
story above! (BTW, yes this is predominantly intended as an International Finance article, but it is cross-listed here because it is
so relevant.)
http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract_id=405023

Agency costs and financing (capital structure)--An alternative view to this is that managers select capital structure (and more generally all financing decisions) with their own (and not necessarily the firm's shareholders) interests at heart.  The following is a list of papers that are consistent with this view of the world:

One of the most frequent ways is to focus on agency costs problems is by looking at managerial risk aversion. (For instance: due to risk aversion managers have incentives to use less debt than is optimal through shareholder eyes (Fama 1980)).   Kayhan gives us evidence that  this conflict exists. She investigates about 1200 firms per year from 1990-2002 and finds that “entrenched managers” have lower leverage than their industry peers (consistent with Mehran 1992). Interestingly she finds the lower leverage is achieved by both more equity issuances as well as lower dividend payouts.
http://www.aylakayhan.com/documents/kayhan_dec03.pdf

These next two are on cash holdings, but I would venture that the same idea holds for financial slack. (I do not thnk the links work--both are in the Journal of Finance--I have also provided links to previous versions of teh paper, basic idea is the same, but the older version is more easily available and for free

Almeida, Campello, and Weisbach develop and test a model of cash sensitivity to cash flow. That is they test whether
firms that are subject to financial constraints hold more cash when they have positive cash flows than do firms that apparently have lower
constraints on raising new cash. The results support the theory that market frictions induce firms to hold more cash.
http://www.afajof.org/Pdf/forthcoming/campello.pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=336369

For numerous reasons managers have an incentive to hold more cash than is optimal from a shareholder perspective. These agency costs problems may be exasperated because cash can provide management with more flexibility in fighting hostile takeovers (example Harford 1999 and Pinkowitz 2002). However, as Faleye points out in an upcoming JF article, takeovers are only one means of disciplining management and proxy contests rise with cash balances. Equally important, following the proxy contest cash balances fall regardless of outcome of proxy battle.
http://www.afajof.org/Pdf/forthcoming/Faleye.pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=276480

Graham and Campbell that looks at how CFOs implement what we teach in class. Surprisingly, many of the things we spend a great deal of time on, are not used that much. For example, “maintaining financial flexibility” is seen as the most important determinant in setting a firm’s capital structure.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=395221


October 22, 2004--While in NYC the SBU Finance Club met with Chris Kinslow and went over a Bankrupcty case.  Here are some of teh notes from theto finance club
        Notes from the bankruptcy presentation


  1. Dividends and Buybacks are the flip side of issuance
  2. IPOs-IPOs--

Jay Ritter is simply put "the man" when it comes to IPOs.  Not only do he and Ivo Welch have a classic review article on IPOs, he also has most of the very influential IPO papers as well.  Moreover, his website is a wealth of IPO data and papers.  For example he  provides evidence of underpricing  on a year by year basis as well as waves, and international IPO underpricing.  He also has a very cool table on the amount of money left on the table by various firms and a list of firms that went up by at least 100% on the first day of trading. He is also the person most responsible for the long run underperformance literature.

Why do companies go public? By Pagano, Panetta, and Zingales
Why underpricing?  Maybe threat of lawsuits (Lowry and Shu 2002)

A summary of Brav and Gompers on the long run underperformance of IPOs.
Are waves irrational? Maybe not.  Maybe changes in real options. Very good article by Pastor and Veronesi.

Advertising and IPOs?  They seem to be connected.  As does underpricing and analyst coverage.

SuperBowl and IPOs?  Yep there is a connection!

End of Lock-up periods
Make some noise!.  The quiet period is over!  TIme for analyst coverage to begin.
Ritter and Loughren on how IPOS have changed


     9. Quick discussion of financial engineering and why we have so many types of securities



  1. The Market for Corporate Control --

    The Market for Corporate Control:  in some ways this is  what happens if internal measures do not work.


    Takeovers: 


Types

Horizontal merger_acquiring competitor
Conglomertae merger--diversifying
Vertical mergers--taking over a supplier or distributor.  Why?  Be careful!  

Fan and Goyal find that there are postivie abnormal returns from vertical acqustions.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=296435


Definitions

Merger: absorbtion of firm A by firm B...in end all are mergers

Acqusition of stock: Purchase--done either in open market or through tender offer

Acquistion of Assets

Proxy contest

   also steeped up depreciation

Tax implications: if deal is seen as a table event: trigger capital gain, if not then no taxes now.

   Takeover waves (and types)

History lesson

  • 1898 to early 1900s--Horizontal mergers  
  • 1920s--vertical mergers
  • 1940s--regulatory driven
  • 1960s conglomeration
  • 1980s Leveraged bust ups
  • late 1990s to now: tech and regulatory as well as vertical

These in  part of can be explained by the Agency Costs and by stock price overvaluation.  

These latter hypotheses won support from Gugler, Mueller, and Yurtoglu (2003)

  Hostile or Friendly?

   LBO--Opler finds improved performance following deal.  Why?  Best guess is better incentives

   Laws

       Regulation comes in several formats.  First attempt to protect shareholders (ex. Williams Act)
       Also to protect consumers from anti-competitive mergers (especially Horizontal).  The key stat in this latter type is the Herfindahl index.

   How a merger can create value

  1. Economies of scale
  2. Economies of vertical integrtaion (lower Transaction costs) 
  3. Combining compliemtary assets (drug company and sales force)
  4. Synergy
  5. Marketing or distribution
  6. Market power--Esp with horizontal mergers
  7. Elimination of poor management
  8. Access to a. materials    b. customers, c. capital

Generally overall value is created.  Most of this goes to shareholders of target.

From Jensen and Ruback (1983)

                       Target %      Bidder %
Tender offer     30%                4%
Merger             20                   0 %
Proxy contest    8%                  NA

Unsuccesful bids may have value if they improve management or if they put firm in play.  Bradley, Desai, and Kim (1983) fidn that those firms who do not receive another bid give up their abnormal returns in 2 years.

How a merger can destroy value

    Dissynergy--Comment and Jarrell---can you say deworsifcation

   Megginson, Morgan, and Nail find that focus decreasing (i.e diversifiying deals) destroy value.

   Maybe they destroy value by signalling overvaluation?  That is one interpretation of  Loughran and Vijh (1997)

    Corporate culture
  Chrysler

  Hostile vs friendly

    Hostile deals get the publicty

     Most deals are friendly

how to fight acquistions

  • Pre--Maximize Shareholder value!
shark repellants
Super majority
Fair Price Amendments
Staggered Boards
Posion Pills
  • Post offer (i.e. you are in play!)
Asset restructuring --selling crown's jewels,
one time dividend
Buyback--possibly greenmail
Litigation-sue everyone

Make it political
Pac men and White Knights

Other forms of restructring:
    Carve-outs--selling a division (generally part of division) to public in form of IPO
    Spin-offs--
giving shares to existing shareholders
    Tracking stock

Key questions

  • Parachutes: Good or bad?
  • Why do we allow managers to fight takeovers?

Discussion of Junk Bonds and Milken

  1. Governance-Corporate Governance has been on the front page of all major papers and has attracted much attention in academic world as well.  It boils down to conflicts within the Nexus.  Generally this focuses on manager and shareholder conflicts. 

    Here are a few notes on the topic from past newsletters, a speech by Alan Greenspan on the topic,  and a class project on the topic from Andy Bubbs (current SBU student).

    Does governance matter? Definitely, but it is often difficult to measure how much it matters. For instance looking at studies that show separate CEO-Chair positions are often driven by multiple factors and the choice is somewhat endogenous. 

    However there is much evidence suggests that governance matters.  Looking at cross listing literature, Nofsinger and Weaver (2003) report that that one reason firms cross list (especially to the US) is to increased investor protections--Caveat, htis is not universally held. Additionally, there is much other international evidence (where the difference between strong and weak governance is more pronounced than in the US) that shows that governance does matter.  For example  Black, Jang, and Kim report that shareholder wealth is strongly positively related to strong governance.  Similarly Black finds the same evidence in looking at Russian Firms.   And a whole bunch of people do the same for Chinese firms.

    Practically, governance issues often come down to disagreements about Executive pay, shareholder voting, poison pills and other areas of entrenchment..
Muslu , Xie, and Neilsen  in separate articles find that the level (lower), form of pay (more or less incentive based), and transparency is affected by the board makeup.  The NY Times reports much the same in "Pay often set by non-independent compensation committees."
Discussion from Christian Brothers (CBIS) on Proxy voting, Proxyinformation.com, and maybe the easiest to follow from Pax funds.


Transparency and Governance

 Where does auditing fit into this?  Can't improve things unless we know what is going on. 

 Chaney and Phillpich (JAR 2002)  find that stock prices dropped as Andersen's reputation worsened.  Also Callen and Morel as well    who find that with a similar results with a slightly different sampe. 
            
Godbey and Mahar (RIF, Forthcoming 2005) find that auditor reputation helps mitigate the information asymmetry problem.
(FWIW this is an early edition of the paper, I am not sure how to get around copyright laws, so I just put up working papers)

What is Wrong with Corporate Governance? 

See Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, NYSE, etc., etc.  The list goes on and on.  We will talk about some of the cases in class.  

Lack of transparency is likely the most severe problem. 

What is Right with Corporate Governance?

Overall US system seems to be best there is.  Sure there are problems, but better than alternatives. The problems

A few sites that you may find useful:

Executive compensation-practice,
theory on pay

International differences
  1. Derivatives
  2. Recap--Putting it together,  review notes,
  3. Congratulations!
Need Practice?

Test 2 from Fall 1999
Test 1 from Spring 1999 at JMU