Discounts for Lack of Marketability: Are Business Appraisers Discounting the Discounts?

We set out to understand the size of DLOMs by comparing the subject of the discounts, privately held companies, to the bases from which discounts should be applied. These relevant bases include publicly traded firms considered as guideline public companies and public market benchmarks from which cost of capital data are obtained. We created a database of 1,328 matched pairs and 9,765 matched industry pairs using transactions from 1995 to 2008. Our results indicate that entity-level discounts average between 68 and 70 percent, which are significantly larger than those reported in other databases and from other studies. We believe one of the main reasons our discounts are larger is because we captured, from privately held company transactions data, the actual value associated with the expected probability of a public market liquidity event. In other words, a matched pairs approach allowed us to calculate the discounted value associated with the expected probability of private firms becoming public firms at some point in the future

Ceo Compensation And The Transformation Of Banking

We examine the compensation strategies of commercial bank holding companies (BHCs) during 1992-2000. In particular, we analyze whether CEO compensation is more closely tied to the presence of growth options and to risk than is revealed in earlier research. We also examine whether BHC entry into investment banking has influenced compensation policies. Our evidence shows a stronger link between growth options and CEO compensation in the 1990s than observed in earlier studies and that pay-for-performance sensitivities are substantially larger for BHCs that have entered the underwriting business. We also find that BHC leverage and variability in returns have positive effects on CEO incentive pay. Finally, we find some evidence supporting the hypothesis that pay-for-performance sensitivities decline generally at BHCs as return variability increases, as agency theory predicts. 2003 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.

A stakeholder resource-based view of corporate social irresponsibility: Evidence from China

Following the stakeholder resource-based view (SRBV), we conceptualize the value relevance of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) based on the stakeholders’ bargaining power and interests in the well-being of the firm, and classify the stakeholders into residual claimants (i.e., customers, shareholders) and fixed claimants (i.e., employees, environment). Using curated detailed news data of 816 CSI episodes and 56,503 Chinese government daily publications from June 2006 to July 2012, we find that CSI episodes alienating residual claimant stakeholders lead to greater shareholder value destruction. Drawing from the stakeholder salience, we find that CSI episodes alienating high legitimacy claims of shareholders and customers, high urgency claims of employees, and powerful claims of customers result in a more pronounced underperformance. Although there are potentially overlapping boundaries between fixed and residual claimants under special circumstances, the findings provide implications for firms making strategic decisions involving multiple stakeholders

The Economics and Politics of Corporate Social Performance

This paper provides an empirical test of a theory that relates corporate financial performance (CFP), corporate social performance (CSP), and social pressure from government and social activist for improved social performance. A three-equation structural model is estimated for a large number of firms for 1996-2004. The estimates are statistically and economically significant and consistent with the theory. CFP as measured by Tobin's q is increasing in CSP, indicating that it is rewarded by consumers, employees, or investors, and decreasing in social pressure. CSP is increasing in social pressure, indicating that social performance is responsive to social pressure which mitigates some of the negative effect of social pressure on CFP. CSP is also increasing in CFP, which is consistent with social performance being a perquisite for management. Social pressure is decreasing in CFP and increasing in CSP, which is consistent with social pressure being directed to soft targets that are likely to be responsive. The measures of CSP and social pressure are also disaggregated, and the relations among CFP, CSP, and social pressure are largely due to responsive CSP and social pressure arising from private politics.