We discuss how Contingent Payment Mechanisms (also known as Contingent Earn-Outs) enable of Entrepreneurial Financing decisions. First, we introduce a taxonomy of contingent payment mechanisms, by combining features regarding their term and amount. Second, we introduce each of these alternative...

In their study “The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment” (1958) laureates of Nobel Price Nobel Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller represent what could possibly be the most important theory for the structure of capital, through which they explain the effect of...

So far, the capital structure of Indian small and medium scale enterprises has been typical. There have been constraints on the amount of total funds that can be raised including equity the owners can privately raise. Funding has come mainly from banks or owned funds. The long term debt has been...

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is a real driving force behind the development of technology-based innovation. It is an entrepreneurial strategy used by big corporations who go outside the company because they can no longer depend solely on creating innovations in-house. CVC enables them to...

Islamic financial institutions have relied for decades on margin-based contracts to provide financing for the business sector, despite the basic idea that Islamic finance is expected to provide an equity-based or a profit and loss sharing (PLS) contract. This fact raises the need to encourage...

Based on 1182 dyads of German new ventures and venture capitalists involved in a financing round between 2002 and 2007, we examine the impact of spatial proximity on the likelihood of an investment. We find that with each triplication of journey time the relative likelihood of an investment...

We explore why venture capital funds limit the amount of capital they raise and do not reinvest the proceeds. This structure is puzzling because it leads to a succession of several funds financing each new venture which multiplies the well known agency problems. We argue that an inside investor...

The Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project survey for business owners, administered during the spring of 2010, reveals an increasingly important role of friends and family (Friends/Family) to provide capital for privately-held businesses. Examining business owners’ perceptions of their...

The existing replication policies at top finance journals are far weaker than the policies at top economics journals. This paper explores both the costs and benefits of having a stronger replication policy in the context of my failed 2010 initiative to develop a unified policy across all top...

This is Professor Cunningham's Introduction to his renowned edited collection of Warren Buffett's famous letters to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The collection was originally prepared for a symposium held in New York City in 1997 and has been regularly updated through five editions,...