Predicting default probabilities is important for firms and banks to operate successfully and to estimate their specific risks. There are many reasons to use nonlinear techniques for predicting bankruptcy from financial ratios. Here we propose the so called Support Vector Machine (SVM) to...

We empirically investigate the determinants of successful debt restructurings fora sample of 116 financially distressed companies in Germany between 1997 and 2004.Of the sampled firms, about half successfully restructure their debt in a workoutwhile the other half fail and file an insolvency...

In this paper we examine the problem of partially hedging a given credit risk exposure. We derive hedges which satisfy certain optimality criteria: For a given investment into the hedge they minimize the remaining risk, or vice versa. This is motivated by the fact that it is a core business of...

This paper is the first to examine the determinants of acquisitions for the U.S. thrift industry during a period of market liberalization and widespread takeover activity, 1994 to 2000.(...)

A common method of valuing the equity in leveraged transactions is the flows-to-equity method whereby the free cash flow available to equity holders is discounted at the cost of equity. This method uses a standard definition of equity free cash flow, but the cost of equity varies over time as...

The current financial market crisis has impressively demonstrated the importance of aneffective credit risk management for financial institutions. At the same time, the use and thevaluation of credit derivatives has been widely criticised as a result of the crisis. Over the pastdecade, credit...

The discussion on value-based performance measures is centered around the concept of residualincome. The main property of residual income is its connection to capital budgeting and the net-present-value-rule. This property is, however, not sufficient to guarantee strong goal congruencebetween...