Articles in "Finance"
UK longevity: are we fit enough to face the future?
Author(s): Les Mayhew
Longevity risk posed by an ageing population is one of the greatest challenges facing the financial services sector in the UK. In the fifth of the 2013 series of The Nicholas Barbon Insurance Lectures, Cass Business School Professor Les Mayhew addressed this issue.
Cass and Unigestion - Private Equity & Investment Management briefing - 1 May 2013
Author(s): Stephen Thomas
As a result of the recently established collaboration between Unigestion, the boutique Swiss Asset Management and Cass Business School's Centre for Asset Management (CAMR), this Breakfast Briefing Series is an opportunity for the academic world and the investment management world to discuss and debate investment methods and techniques, in theory and in practice.
Monkeys vs Fund managers - An evaluation of alternative equity indices
Author(s): Andrew Clare et al.
A research collaboration between Aon Hewitt and Cass Business School has shown that alternative weighted indices offer better investment strategies than those of the market capitalisation index. Indeed, a computer simulation of random stock-picking, likened to the decision making of a monkey, outperformed a traditional market capitalisation weighted index every time.
The Sale of Price Information by Stock Exchanges: Does it Promote Price Discovery?
Author(s): Giovanni Cespa et al.
An essential function of securities markets is to discover asset values. The function is critical for an efficient allocation of capital in the economy, as better price discovery in the stock market translates into better capital allocation decisions. For this reason, regulators and academics often see the maximisation of price discovery as an extremely important goal. Market design depends in large part on the decisions of stock exchanges and stock exchanges themselves are now for-profit firms. Their income derives from trading revenues and increasingly from the sale of information on prices. In this paper, we show that the efficiency of price discovery is, among other factors, determined by the fee charged by exchanges for price information.
Venture Capital meets Contract Theory: Risky Claims or Formal Control?
Author(s): Giacinta Cestone
This paper develops a financial contracting model to investigate the allocation of control and cash flow rights attained through contractual covenants in Venture Capital deals. It argues that an innovative startup should seek to limit the VC's control rights when arranging a riskier claim, so as not to stifle entrepreneurial initiative. This research challenges the standard assumption that greater control rights should be assigned to such a venture.
Learning From Your Investors: Shareholder support in M&A transactions
Author(s): Maria Carapeto et al.
With companies increasingly looking at targets abroad, the need to acquire specialised knowledge about the target, the target country's environment and the potential merits that may result from a given M&A deal is becoming ever more important. This research looks at the assistance long-term institutional shareholders could offer corporates in achieving their aims.
The Cass MARC M&A Maturity Index 2012
Author(s): Scott Moeller et al.
In collaboration with its research partners, Credit Suisse and Ernst & Young, the M&A Research Centre (MARC) at Cass Business School provides its second annual report (July 2012) on the maturity for M&A purposes of countries worldwide. The Cass MARC Maturity Index illustrates each country's ability to attract and sustain M&A activity, as well as identifying areas where improvement is needed. The index rates 148 countries according to their regulatory and political, economic and financial, technological and socio-economic environments, as well as their level of assets and infrastructure. It looks at the attractiveness of each country for domestic and inward deals and does not address external acquisitions for companies based in that country.
The Economic Impact of M&A: Implications for UK firms
Author(s): Scott Moeller et al.
M&A deals are complex and challenging transactions that arguably represent the most significant investment a company can undertake, and give researchers an opportunity to analyse the value implications of these executive decisions. Whether mergers and acquisitions ultimately create or destroy corporate value and the identification of the factors that determine M&A success or failure are issues of crucial importance for both the management and shareholders of companies, and also for policy makers. The results presented in this paper provide some important conclusions regarding the impact of mergers and acquisitions in the UK, which should be taken into consideration by policymakers reviewing this area of the corporate environment.
How They Spend It: A study of corporate cash levels and spending behaviour
Author(s): Scott Moeller et al.
This research examines Corporate Cash Holdings, Corporates' Spending Patterns and Optimal Spending Strategies, using all non-financial and non-utility companies listed on the London Stock Exchange at any point in time between 1996 and 2010 as a study sample.
The First 1,000 Days in the Life of an IPO
Author(s): Scott Moeller et al.
Firms which list their shares on the pubic market should do so with the intent of using their new status for further growth. Whether they do so, and how their activities affect performance, are the bases of this study. In collaboration with its research partners, Credit Suisse and Ernst & Young, the M&A Research Centre (MARC) at Cass Business School performed a study of UK IPOs between 1995 and 2008. The study followed 1,559 companies for the 1,000 days after their first day of trading. The sample includes IPOs which listed their shares on either the UK Main exchange (Main) or on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).