• Mergers and Acquisitions/Exit Planning - QuickPress

    One Quarter of All Public M&A Deals Involve Insider Trading

      As if the general public hadn’t lost enough faith in the stock market with recent revelations of rigged deal-making that benefits only a few, a new study shows that 25 percent of all M&A deals between public companies involve some kind of insider trading. The study, conducted by McGill University and New York University, looked at informed trading activity in equity options prior to the announcement of corporate deals. The study’s abstract states: For the target companies, we document pervasive directional options activity, consistent with strategies that would yield abnormal returns to investors with private information. This is demonstrated…

  • QuickPress - Valuation/Appraisal

    Country-specific Cost of Capital is ‘By Far’ Damodaran’s Most Popular Download —BVWire News

    Particularly When Valuing Companies with Substantial Foreign Operations, Business Valuation Analysts Know That Country-Specific Input Is Critical  David Foster at BVWire News reports that in additional to his general data update for 2013, Prof. Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern School of Business) provides a list of country default spreads and risk premiums.  Here’s the professor’s assessment:

  • QuickPress - Valuation/Appraisal

    NYU’s Legendary Valuation Expert: 4 Things Apple Must Do To Become A Hot Stock Again —Business Insider

    Aswath Damodaran, NYU’s Legendary Valuation Expert, Recently Argues that there’s a 90% Chance Apple is Undervalued.  Here’s Why.   This comes in the wake of Apple shares’ breathtaking plunge from recent highs. (That’s be about $700 in September to $425 or so today.) In a new blog post, Sam Ro at Business Insider reports that Damodaran thinks that management can learn a few things from the recent market volatility, and he offers some advice.  Here are his four tips verbatim (emphasis courtesy of Business Insider’s Sam Ro:   Build up credibility with investors: The company has to regain credibility with investors. Apple…