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In bankruptcy, a reorganization procedure is based on the terms of a reorganization plan aimed to save a financially distressed firm. We provide an original approach of the reorganization plan that we treated as a future contract that demands to creditors a certain degree of cost sharing. This paper examines how the sharing of the reorganization plan costs influences the bankruptcy outcome of such firm.

The sharing of the costs between creditors and debtor is analyzed by a static theoretical model that uses a Lagrangian approach.

We show that debtors have strong incentives to propose reorganization plans which provide an expected gain for creditors higher than the liquidation value of the firm and lower than the payment of the reorganization plan with an optimal sharing degree. Hence, a reorganization plan can be rejected by creditors if the sharing degree is too important.

The liquidation of the firm can be avoided if the design of the reorganization plan is improved by performing an appraisal or purchasing the services of an audit company.

The novelty of this paper resides in the distinction of two types of bankruptcy legal systems. The first one represents a pro-creditor or a creditor-friendly bankruptcy system in which the claimants’ payment is not limited to a fixed value written in the reorganization plan. Conversely, we treated the case of a debtor-friendly bankruptcy system which limits the creditors’ payment. The results of our model hold independently of the bankruptcy law orientation, that is, pro-creditor or pro-debtor.

In a decentralized supply chain with one supplier and one retailer, a properly designed contract can lead to supply chain coordination. In this chapter, we model the selection of an appropriate coordinating contract from a menu of contracts including wholesale price, buyback, and markdown money, while allowing both the supplier and the retailer to assume the roles of Stackelberg leader and/or supply chain captain. This work extends previous literature that assumes that the supplier is both the Stackelberg leader and the supply chain captain. In our models, either agent can make stocking and pricing decisions. Our findings suggest that the feasibility of a coordinating contract depends on the addition of Pareto-improving, profit-sharing conditions that motivate agents to take part in the contract. Further, the selection of an optimal contract is based not only on which agent holds the overstock liquidation advantage, but also on the decision structure of the supply chain. For instance, when the supplier is the Stackelberg leader and the retailer is the supply chain captain, as well as holds the inventory liquidation advantage, and controls the stocking level, then a wholesale price contract can coordinate the supply chain under the proposed Pareto-improving profit sharing, termed Pareto-improving coordination. Additional results and managerial implications are presented in the chapter.

We consider two economic aspects of required reserves on bank deposits, their impact on bank-intermediated investment versus direct investment and their opportunity cost. We show that Bank reserves serve as a buffer to mitigate inefficient liquidation of a bank's assets in order to meet the demand for liquidity by investors. Due to some transaction costs or information costs, investors may prefer bank-intermediated investment to direct investment. Banks offer investors competitive deposit returns compared to the liquidation value of investment to attract funds from investors. If the Federal Reserve allows banks to set their individual optimal level of reserves, this might mitigate costs associated with required reserves. If banks implement the social optimum, this may introduce additional fragility into the banking system. We argue that required reserves might lead to deadweight loss if they are set above a bank's optimally determined reserves.

We show why investors may prefer not to be a firm’s unique lender, even if they are in a strong bargaining position. Some firms need additional funds after a first investment: providing additional funds is rational after the first investment is sunk, but together the two investments are unprofitable. A unique lender will always provide additional funds and make losses. Two creditors can commit not always to provide funds: inefficient negotiations over debt forgiveness may end with a project’s liquidation, which is harmful ex post, but helpful ex ante, if it keeps entrepreneurs with nonpromising projects from initially requesting funds.

“Tell me the price and I’ll tell you the terms,” is a common axiom among early-stage investors. Investors and seasoned entrepreneurs know that the overall company value is only the half of the valuation story. Investors frequently insist on receiving securities beyond common stock in return for capital financing. Such securities may be convertible debt, or, frequently, preferred shares.

The classic approach to valuing preferred stock as debt frequently understates the value of preferred shares and, accordingly, overvalues the value of common stock. Aside from preferential liquidation rights and dividends, preferred stock frequently carries conversion rights, participation features, antidilution rights, and other enhancements that are designed to give more return to preferred shareholders at the expense of the common shareholders (who are frequently the founders). Preferred share investment terms are so flexible that they can be engineered to completely negate the perceived benefits of a high valuation to incumbent shareholders, and shift the return to the entering, preferred shareholders.

More sophisticated methodologies for allocating equity value among various classes of shareholders are becoming more common in the accounting and regulatory communities, resulting in more robust and credible value conclusions. Such methodologies are discussed in this chapter using specific examples. These methodologies are also expected to eventually propagate to the investment community because of the economic and financial foundations are quite sound. Although some of these techniques are, admittedly, complex, an understanding of early-stage venture valuation is incomplete without, at least, a high-level understanding of such techniques.

Given the rising need for measuring and controlling of financial risk as proposed in Basel II and Basel III Capital Adequacy Accords, trading risk assessment under illiquid market conditions plays an increasing role in banking and financial sectors, particularly in emerging financial markets. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate asset liquidity risk and to obtain a Liquidity-Adjusted Value at Risk (L-VaR) estimation for various equity portfolios. The assessment of L-VaR is performed by implementing three different asset liquidity models within a multivariate context along with GARCH-M method (to estimate expected returns and conditional volatility) and by applying meaningful financial and operational constraints. Using more than six years of daily return dataset of emerging Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stock markets, we find that under certain trading strategies, such as short selling of stocks, the sensitivity of L-VaR statistics are rather critical to the selected internal liquidity model in addition to the degree of correlation factors among trading assets. As such, the effects of extreme correlations (plus or minus unity) are crucial aspects to consider in selecting the most adequate internal liquidity model for economic capital allocation, especially under crisis condition and/or when correlations tend to switch sings. This chapter bridges the gap in risk management literatures by providing real-world asset allocation tactics that can be used for trading portfolios under adverse markets’ conditions. The approach to computing L-VaR has been arrived at through the application of three distinct liquidity models and the obtained results are used to draw conclusions about the relative liquidity of the diverse equity portfolios.

Juglar's entry on “commercial crises” appeared in Maurice Block's Dictionnaire général de la politique … avec la collaboration d’hommes d’État, de publicistes et d’écrivains de tous les pays.⁶ The dictionary went through two editions – in 1863 and 1873 (with a reprint of the second edition in 1884). One of the most remarkable features of these articles is that they sum up the 258 pages of the first edition of Juglar's Des crises commerciales in only 13 pages. Although they are not numerous, the changes that Juglar introduced in the second edition are important, as they testify to the work he did in that decade on banking and foreign exchanges.

As in diseases, a commercial crisis is a critical moment to go through. As soon as embarrassments arise, the question is whether one will resist or one will succumb. A crisis is the touchstone that allows us to gauge the soundness of commercial houses, the size of their commitments and of the resources they possess, in capital or in credit, to face up to them. Thanks to the crisis the market operates a sort of selection; the houses that have lost their balance collapse; the others resist. This is how crises indicate the firms that are dubious and those we can trust. Carried away as people were on the wings of credit, they now regain a foothold, although, alongside the businesses that are still afloat, a large number are now under water.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 included depositor preference legislation intended to reduce Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) resolution costs. However, depositor preference might induce an offsetting reaction by general creditors and may affect resolution type.

We examine the empirical impact of state-level depositor preference laws on resolution type and costs with call-report data and FDIC data for all operating FDIC-BIF insured commercial banks that were closed or required FDIC financial assistance from January 1986 through December 1992. Our major findings are that depositor preference has: (1) tended to increase resolution costs; and (2) induced the FDIC to choose assisted mergers over liquidations.