We analyze Berkshire Hathaway's equity portfolio over the 1976 to 2006 period and explore potential explanations for its superior performance. Contrary to popular belief, we find Berkshire Hathaway invests primarily in large-cap growth rather than quot;valuequot; stocks. Over the period the...

This paper explores the advantage of private equity in turnaround situations. Since the analysis and recovery plan of floundering businesses is typically carried out by an external turnaround specialist, it is not clear what causes a breakdown in the ownership-management separation. The paper...

Venture capital funding is commonly provided to start-up firms on a piecemeal basis over numerous stages. One way in which this can be implemented is through milestone financing, where a venture capitalist commits upfront to providing additional future funding contingent upon the firm meeting...

We explore equilibrium corporate capital structure under the tradeoff that additional debt generates the familiar corporate tax benefit, while additional equity generates more information about the value of growth opportunities, allowing a more precise estimate of the return on real investment....

We examine the risk shifting problem of capital investments in a dynamic context. We find that when a firm has a long- lived project and may issue debt in the future, the risk- shifting problem is partially ameliorated early in the project life. In fact, if the potential future cash flows...

Recently, spread futures, a futures contract whose underlyingasset is the difference of two futures contracts with differentdelivery dates, have been successfully introduced for fourdifferent financial futures contracts traded on the ChicagoBoard of Trade. A spread futures contract is a...

This paper comprehensively examines whether the presence of interlocked directors on a board is associated with weak governance. For a sample of 3,566 firm-years over the 2001-2003 time period, we find that firms with lower industry-adjusted firm performance are more likely to have interlocked...

This paper examines the potential benefits of security fungibility by conducting the first comprehensive analysis of Global bonds. Unlike other debt securities, Global bonds' fungibility allows them to be placed simultaneously in bond markets around the world; they trade, clear and settle...

This paper examines the potential benefits of security fungibility by conducting the first comprehensive analysis of Global bonds. Unlike other debt securities, Global bonds' fungibility allows them to be placed simultaneously in bond markets around the world; they trade, clear and settle...

We examine the impact of target management involvement as bidders in a sample of completed going-private buyouts. Announcement period and long run target shareholder returns do not appear to be lower in management involved deals. We attempt to identify disciplining mechanisms in the takeover...