Do synergies exist in related acquisitions? - A meta-analysis of acquisition studies

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) aim to increase wealth for shareholders of the acquiring company, in particular by creating synergies. It is often assumed that relatedness is a source of synergies. Our study distinguishes between business, cultural, technological and size relatedness. It discusses the reasons why these different forms of relatedness can lead to an acquisition success and conducts a meta-analysis of 67 prior M&A studies. Results indicate that positive effects can be expected under specific conditions only and have a limited overall impact on acquisition success. A moderator analysis finds that synergies stemming from relatedness depend on industry-, country-, and investor-characteristics

Protectin DX increases alveolar fluid clearance in rats with lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a life-threatening critical syndrome resulting largely from the accumulation of and the inability to clear pulmonary edema. Protectin DX, an endogenously produced lipid mediator, is believed to exert anti-inflammatory and pro-resolution effects. Protectin DX (5 µg/kg) was injected i.v. 8 h after LPS (14 mg/kg) administration, and alveolar fluid clearance was measured in live rats (n = 8). In primary rat ATII epithelial cells, protectin DX (3.605 × 10 mg/l) was added to the culture medium with LPS for 6 h. Protectin DX improved alveolar fluid clearance (9.65 ± 1.60 vs. 15.85 ± 1.49, p < 0.0001) and decreased pulmonary edema and lung injury in LPS-induced lung injury in rats. Protectin DX markedly regulated alveolar fluid clearance by upregulating sodium channel and Na, K-ATPase protein expression levels in vivo and in vitro. Protectin DX also increased the activity of Na, K-ATPase and upregulated P-Akt via inhibiting Nedd4-2 in vivo. In addition, protectin DX enhanced the subcellular distribution of sodium channels and Na, K-ATPase, which were specifically localized to the apical and basal membranes of primary rat ATII cells. Furthermore, BOC-2, Rp-cAMP, and LY294002 blocked the increased alveolar fluid clearance in response to protectin DX. Protectin DX stimulates alveolar fluid clearance through a mechanism partly dependent on alveolar epithelial sodium channel and Na, K-ATPase activation via the ALX/PI3K/Nedd4-2 signaling pathway

Earn-Outs in debt restructuring plans: economics and valuation

Outstanding academic literature mainly deals with Earn-Outs in M&As. Scarce attention has been paid to Earn-Out provisions in debt-restructuring plans. The topic is, however, of particular relevance within the more general issue of troubled debt restructuring and option pricing methodlogies. In general terms, Earn-Outs are tied to the company’s performance. They are often struc-tured as long-term long or short options (often, European call options) where the under-lying is related to certain financial margins, ratios or cash flows (revenues, EBITDA, operational cash flows, free cash flow, Return on Investments, Return on Assets). This paper first aims at providing insight to the rationale of Earn-Out provisions for fi-nancially distressed firms that agree upon some debt restructuring plans with creditors. Moreover, the work investigates the basic principles of Earn-Outs’ economic valuation. After discussing the main implications of Earn-Out value estimation at light of extant literature on corporate restructuring and option pricing related issues, we propose a valu-ation methodology based on a Monte Carlo simulation approach which allows to repre-sent a multitude of paths of a few relevant financial variables along with the related prob-ability distribution. Besides coming to an assessment of the economic values, our model allows for a probabilistic representation (not necessarily under a risk-neutral environ-ment) of the wide spectrum of the restructured debt pay-offs, for both the company and the bank