Browsing by Subject "Bankruptcy"
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Item Creditor committee composition in bankruptcy court : an empirical study(2011-08) Forero, Andres; Gamkhar, Shama; Granof, Michael; Stolp, Chandler; Buckley, Cynthia; Dickerson, A. MecheleCreditor committees have been characterized as the “watchdogs” of the bankruptcy reorganization process of large companies. Not only do creditor committees have broad statutory powers to oversee the debtor and its management, but they also play a key role in preventing abuses by professionals and other participants in the often complex corporate bankruptcy process. Furthermore, recent research has provided evidence of abusive fee practices in large corporate bankruptcy cases which point to failures in the oversight mechanisms of the process. This dissertation examines the role of creditor committees in the bankruptcy process and in selected outcomes of this process, with a focus on fees paid to bankruptcy professionals. Based on a unique data set comprised of 1,037 bankruptcy cases over the period 1999-2008, the research first examines committee characteristics along three separate dimensions of analysis: individual characteristics of members serving on committees; changes of committee composition over the life of the committees; and social characteristics of committee interlocks. The Calpine bankruptcy case is used throughout this dissertation to illustrate the research. This research finds a dense network of interlocks that dominates large cases, with financial industry members being significantly more likely to serve on multiple committees than non-financial industry members. Analysis of the data shows that over 50% of creditor committees are never amended and there are no systematic recompositions of the remaining committees. A test of small-world topology in the member creditor committee network fails to show a strong small-world structure in the member social network once it is corrected for imposed network topology. This dissertation then employs econometric models to evaluate whether creditor committee variables help explain professional fees in large bankruptcy cases. It finds a statistically significant and positive relationship between the social centrality measure of the creditor committee case and the professional fees paid. This finding points to potential conflicts of interest among the repeat creditor committee players and their constituents. The research fails to find a significant relationship between the presence of financial firms in creditors’ committees and professional fees paid in the case. The dissertation concludes with policy recommendations and suggestions for further research.Item Essays on marketing's impact on financial performance(2015-12) Jindal, Niket Kumar; McAlister, Leigh; DeKinder, Jade; Duan, Jason; Henderson, Andrew; Rao, Raghunath SMy dissertation builds upon research at the intersection of marketing and finance by providing managerial insight on three specific aspects of marketing’s impact on financial performance. My first essay shows how marketing reduces a firm’s bankruptcy risk. Prior research has shown that two key marketing assets, advertising assets and R&D assets, increase a firm’s shareholder value. While one might conclude that the impacts of these marketing assets on bankruptcy risk are merely the inverse of their impacts on shareholder value, I argue otherwise and show that market turbulence moderates the impacts of advertising assets and R&D assets on bankruptcy risk but not shareholder value. My second essay shows how firm strategy moderates the impact of advertising on a firm’s financial performance. I hypothesize that advertising should influence shareholder value for a firm with a differentiation strategy because advertising can elaborate the firm’s point of difference into brand equity, thereby building shareholder value. In contrast, advertising cannot build brand equity for a firm with a cost leadership strategy because such a firm has no point of difference on which to build. Identifying differentiators and cost leaders by firms’ reactions to a change in accounting regulations, I confirm my hypotheses: Advertising increases sales for all firms but increases shareholder value more for differentiators than for cost leaders. My third essay shows the financial value of offering trade credit to business customers. The “finance perspective” argues that, since cash flows from a trade credit sale are delayed and vulnerable, trade credit sales should be less valuable than cash sales. I show, however, that this is not the case because the value of a sale is not solely driven by the cash flows from a single transaction – it is driven by the expected future cash flows from all future sales to the customer. Consistent with the “marketing perspective”, which recognizes that offering trade credit also builds relational assets with key business customers, I show that trade credit sales are actually more valuable than cash sales.Item Lehman Brothers’ financial crisis : the nation’s largest collapse of an investment bank(2010-05) Chao, Chia-Man; Anderson, Ronald B.; Williams, Jerome D.On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy causing the meltdown of the fourth-largest American investment bank that shocked the financial industry and caused major damage to the world’s economy. This paper examines the situation leading to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and identifies the key publics in the financial crisis. In addition, this paper examines the communications and relationships Lehman Brothers had with its key publics during the crisis from the perspective of the Excellence theory. The facts and evidence of the case of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy that are presented in this paper are sourced from news releases, congressional hearing reports, examiner’s reports on Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing, Lehman Brothers’ earning reports, conference calls, and press releases. Finally, this paper will provide recommendations on dealing with crises based on Excellence theory and the opinions of public relations practitioners.