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An appraisal is normally conducted to determine financial viability of property development projects for several purposes. The residual valuation method is normally used to appraise such projects and the purpose of the paper is to examine its financial viability decision rules (FVDRs) used by practitioners.

The qualitative research approach was adopted based on the case study strategy of enquiry where 48 development appraisal reports from 37 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors registered firms in London were accessed from the internet and critically reviewed.

Site-specific and area-wide development appraisals for planning purposes dominated the reports. Five FVDRs were identified. A development project is financially viable if: (i) computed residual profit expressed as a percentage return is equal to or greater than a determined market benchmark risk-adjusted return; (ii) computed residual profit expressed as a percentage return is positive; (iii) calculated residual land value is greater than open market land value or benchmark land value; (iv) computed residual land value is positive; and (v) there is a surplus when appraisal cost variables including land costs plus allowance for developer’s profit are deducted from gross development value. In some reports, it was discovered some appraisal cost variables were excluded whilst others were inappropriately treated.

The first and third FVDRs are reasonable whilst the remaining are fraught with problems and using them can make development projects that are financially unviable to be viable. Also, excluding relevant cost variables and treating some inappropriately understate the appraisal cost component resulting in incorrect financial viability outcomes. These can lead to wrong recommendations about financial viability being proffered that negatively affect the practitioners’ clientele. The dominance of development appraisals for planning purposes shows the important role development appraisals continue to play in the English planning system.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first time FVDRs in development appraisals have been systematically investigated in England with resultant new empirical findings and arguments.

In English valuation practice, when valuing small to medium size (StMS) shops, rental analysis is undertaken using zoning based on the argument that shop fronts including window displays attract customers to shops and that most trading takes place in the internal frontage area making it the most valuable part of shops. Albeit zoning has been critiqued, it remains the preferred method of rental analysis. The paper aims to answer two research questions: are shop fronts including window displays the only factor that attracts customers to shops? And is the frontage space within shops the area most trading takes place?

The exploratory qualitative research methodology was used, and primary data collected by observing 178 shops in selected five shopping areas. The observational data were complemented with the use of secondary data.

The study has shown that shop fronts are not the only factor attracting clientele to shops as there are other varied factors including location, availability of Internet and hoardings. There is no evidence to suggest most goods in shops are displayed at the frontage space that attract most customers to that area, thereby, making the area the most valuable part, which decreases backwards.

These findings coupled with extant research evidence implies zoning can lead to under or over valuation of StMS shops (which is not good for retail real estate (RE) management or market), and turnover generated from shops is the overarching determinant of rental values in valuation.

This is the first time the very foundation/underpinning principles of zoning have been subjected to scrutiny in England.

After completion of the case study, the students would be able to comprehend the crisis at hand for Milkbasket, why did it resist Reliance’s takeover in the first place, then to evaluate the pros-cons and future prospects for the organization post-acquisition; to evaluate from an ethical standpoint the process of mergers and acquisitions using ethical frameworks to understand how, when, to whom and through what processes do mergers and acquisitions qualify the test of being ethical; and to analyse different hostile takeovers, especially through tender offers, proxy contests and toehold bidding strategy in this case.

Founded in 2015, Milkbasket was a micro-delivery start-up based in Gurugram (near New Delhi), India. Milkbasket would let its subscribers order till midnight and deliver groceries, milk and other everyday essentials to its subscribers before 7 a.m. next day. It had burnt a lot of cash and was facing difficulty in getting investors; as such they were engaged in discussions with many companies. Two of them – Reliance Retail Venture Limited and BigBasket – were not accepting the proposed valuation, but Milkbasket got term sheets from other two companies.

This case study can be used for graduate courses on strategic management, business ethics and corporate governance. This case study can also be used in corporate finance course to highlight the importance of making ethical/responsible judgements to protect stakeholder interests.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

States have intervened with legislation to improve cashflow within construction project supply chains. The operation of the UK’s Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 leads to payment obligations stated either as a contract administrator’s certificate (or equivalent) or an adjudicator’s decision. The purpose of the intervention would be defeated unless there are speedy ways of transforming these pieces of paper into real money. The combination of the legislation, contractual provisions and insolvency law has produced a minefield of complexity concerning enforcement of payment obligations stated in these documents. Unfortunately, the knowledge and understanding required to navigate these complexities have been sorely lacking. The purpose of this paper is to plug this gap.

Legal research methods and case study approaches, using relevant court decisions as data, were adopted.

The enforcement method advised by the court is the summary judgment procedure provided under the Civil Procedure Rules. An overdue payment obligation, either under the terms of a construction contract or an adjudicator’s decision, amounts to a debt that can be the subject of insolvency proceedings. Although the insolvency enforcement method has been successfully used on some occasions, using it purely as a debt collection weapon would be inappropriate and likely to be punished by the court.

The paper contributes to knowledge in two ways: (i) it maps out the factual situations in which these payment challenges arise in language accessible to the construction industry’s professions; and (ii) comparative analysis of payment enforcement methods to aid decision-making by parties to construction industry contracts. It is relevant to the other common-law jurisdictions in which similar statutory interventions have been made.

The purpose of this study is to provide a holistic view of the emergence of shareholder activism (SA) in India. However, specifically, this study aims at fulfilling the research gap by discussing the policy and legal advancement in the area of SA and investigating the chronological evolution of SA, manifestations of SA, motives of SA, outcome of SAs and impact of SA on the financial performance of the firm.

This study used a mixed methodology (both qualitative and quantitative) to draw inferences, including content analysis, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test. The data has been collected from the annual reports of the sample companies and the Prowess database. Return on assets and return on equity have been used as measures of financial performance while investigating the difference in financial performance between firms subjected to SA and firms not subjected to SA.

The findings of this study suggest that there has been significant growth in the occurrence of SA incidents in India in the past decade, with shareholders prominently manifesting by opposing the proposals at annual general meetings/extraordinary general meetings, mostly involving governance-related demands. The findings from the independent sample t-tests revealed that there has been a significant difference in the financial performance of the sample subjected to SA and firms not subjected to SA. Furthermore, the results of the paired sample t-test provide strong evidence of significant improvement in the financial performance of firms’ post-SA.

The findings of this study have implications for various stakeholders. The findings of this study suggest that SA has been relatively more successful in the Indian context and may encourage minority shareholders to follow active participation through shareholder proposals and votes rather than a passive strategy to trade and exit. For firms, it can provide valuable inferences about the emergence of SA and how it has a positive impact on the financial performance of the firm, which can lead to a change in the perception of investors and promoters who perceive SA as a threat (Gillan and Starks 2000; Hartzell and Starks, 2003). For policymakers, it can act as a tool to investigate whether the regulatory changes have been able to bring the intended transparency, accountability and enhanced shareholder participation. This will encourage policymakers to be more agile, as their efforts are bearing fruit. This will also act as a guide to formulating future policies and regulations.

This study is an effort to provide a holistic view of SA scenarios in a developing economy setting like India, where SA is a very recent phenomenon. Although there are studies in the area of SA, there is a dearth of studies that have investigated the various dimensions of SA in the Indian context in a very systematic and extensive manner, investigating all the different dimensions of SA. Furthermore, this study also intends to investigate the impact of SA, which is normally perceived as a threat to financial performance and provide valuable contrasting evidence.

This study aims to transcend geographical boundaries and provide insights into innovative strategies used by Indian Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs) in managing distressed assets. The study examines the origins, evolution, challenges and opportunities faced by ARCs to derive lessons that can be universally applicable and serve as a valuable blueprint for global investors and institutions seeking effective strategies in managing distressed assets. From a legal and compliance angle, this opens up many perspectives that would help plug loopholes and grey zones within the legal ambit for organisations and institutions.

The study invokes a critical review of existing literature, news, discussions and publicly available information from reliable sources such as the central bank’s websites to develop the viewpoints and provide recommendations.

ARCs face challenges, recovering only 19.15% of distressed assets in 2022. Despite constraints like funding, governance issues and regulatory hurdles, there is a substantial opportunity for investors in the Rs. 9.6 lakh crore non-performing assets. The study suggests strategic assessments by banks, emphasises ARCs’ roles in specific sectors and calls for regulatory adjustments. With diverse investors and favourable regulations, this evolving landscape offers significant global opportunities for policymakers and investors in distressed assets.

This study serves as a valuable guide for shaping resilient policies, fostering cross-border collaborations and optimising distressed asset management strategies on a global scale.

This study breaks new ground by examining the private ARCs sector within an emerging economy’s dynamics, presenting insights relevant to global distressed markets. This study serves as a unique resource for those navigating the complexities of distressed markets globally, providing insights that can inform strategies, policies and academic discussions in the broader financial landscape.

“NTL suffered huge losses in its foreign exchange hedging activities as its highly complex leveraged structured products backfired badly in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 and 2008. The CFO and the Treasury head have both been sacked, and Joshi, the new CFO, has embraced aggressive litigation as NTL's survival strategy to cope with the losses that threaten its solvency. In the meantime, NTL also faces tax investigations and whistleblower allegations of fraud, and it finds that the record-keeping of its derivative transactions was hopelessly incomplete and patchy. A complete reconstruction of the entire derivative transaction history is the only way to rebuild trust, and that task falls on Reddy, a seasoned derivatives expert brought in by the Board specifically for this purpose.

In this dire situation, Seth, the founder Chairman of NTL decides that NTL needs to put all this behind it and focus on rebuilding the business. The challenge for Seth, Joshi and Reddy is to go about doing this in an environment that offers very few rays of hope.”

This study aims to analyse the outcomes of Indian insolvency proceedings for their ex-post economic efficiency. Ideally, insolvent yet viable companies should witness resolution, whereas insolvent-unviable companies should be liquidated. This study aims to ascertain the key forces that ensure or prevent the application of the first part of this maxim in practice.

The study uses logistic regression on a sample of 320 corporate insolvencies (out of 942 insolvencies) reported under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016. Two-stage least squares regression is used to check endogeneity issues.

The results claim high levels of rationality from the financial creditors and acceptable levels of viability from the plan proposers for precluding liquidation of insolvent yet viable companies. The findings reveal that an excess of value from resolution over that from liquidation, controls the outcomes of insolvency proceedings. Further examinations indicate that financial creditors’ focus on upfront recovery prevents them from judging the plans on other viability-related factors. Based on the findings, this study recommends that IBC must focus on the importance of both long-term recovery rates and resolution.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to empirically analyse Type 2 efficiency-related errors prevalent in the Indian insolvency proceedings since the enactment of its new code. The empirical explorations offered in this research can prove to be unique for policy-making.