J. Casey, J. Hernandez (éd.), Familia, parentesco y linaje. Historia de la familia, una nueva perspectiva sobre la sociedad europea, 1997

Mantecon Movellan Tomas A. J. Casey, J. Hernandez (éd.), Familia, parentesco y linaje. Historia de la familia, una nueva perspectiva sobre la sociedad europea, 1997. In: Annales de démographie historique, 2000-1. Les Français d'Amérique. pp. 144-147

Mitigating risks in cross-border acquisitions

Compared to domestic acquisitions, cross-border acquisitions present greater challenges for buyers. This article analyzes the use of contingent payments, joint ventures, and toehold investments as potential mechanisms for reducing uncertainty in cross-border acquisitions. Toehold investments and earnout payments are associated with larger gains to buyers in domestic acquisitions, but not in cross-border acquisitions. The results indicate that joint ventures can be an effective mechanism to ameliorate the uncertainty associated with cross-border acquisitions in the presence of severe valuation uncertainties and country investment risks.Cross-border acquisitions Investment uncertainty Joint ventures

An analysis of the implications of uncertainty and agency problems on the wealth effects to acquirers of private firms

Extensive empirical work shows that bidders do not gain from the acquisition of publicly traded targets but experience positive excess returns in the acquisition of privately held firms. This study investigates how two important differences between private and public firms, namely, informational uncertainty and ownership characteristics, impact the returns to acquirers. A sample of targets that were acquired shortly after filing for an IPO was collected to circumvent the lack of information on private firms. In spite of the special characteristics of these targets, the listing effect is still prevalent in this sample. The results of the analysis are consistent with the hypothesis that acquirers gain in the acquisition of private firms because these targets have a relatively weaker bargaining position due to informational and agency problems and costly access to external capital markets to finance growth opportunities.

The Valuation Effects of Initiations and Terminations of Joint Ventures.

This dissertation examines the valuation effects of initiations and terminations of joint ventures formed by two partners. The evidence indicates that there is an increase in value for both partners at joint venture initiations and that these gains are greater for small partners than for the large partners. The pattern of the gains to partners is consistent with the certification value of the inter-corporate relationship intrinsic to a joint venture. Moreover, an analysis of the operating performance after the initiation of joint ventures indicates that there is no significant improvement in operating performance of the partner firms relative to benchmark firms after the initiation of the joint venture. Thus, there is no evidence that the share price gains at the joint venture announcement reflect market expectations of future synergistic gains. Joint ventures are also analyzed as a vehicle that can facilitate a sale of assets and as a mechanism to obtain external financing for a project. The results indicate that when partners (sellers) contribute assets to the joint venture while their partners (buyers) provide liquidity to the joint venture or pay cash directly to the selling partners, the transaction serves as a substitute for a direct asset sale and generates greater gains for selling firms. The impact of industry characteristics of the partners participating in the joint venture is also examined. The results indicate that firms experience greater gains when both partners in a joint venture are in the same industry. This finding suggests that partners that both possess information about the same industry serve as more effective monitors. Partners in vertical joint ventures do not experience different valuation effects than those sustained by partners in non-vertical joint ventures. The valuation effects of announcements of terminations of joint venture are analyzed. The results indicate that there are no statistically significant wealth effects to partners at the termination of joint ventures, a result that suggests that these events are likely to be well anticipated. Overall, the pattern of the wealth effects is consistent with the presence of valuable monitoring and certification activities between the partners in a joint venture

J. Casey, J. Hernandez (éd.), Familia, parentesco y linaje. Historia de la familia, una nueva perspectiva sobre la sociedad europea, 1997

Mantecon Movellan Tomas A. J. Casey, J. Hernandez (éd.), Familia, parentesco y linaje. Historia de la familia, una nueva perspectiva sobre la sociedad europea, 1997. In: Annales de démographie historique, 2000-1. Les Français d'Amérique. pp. 144-147

An analysis of the liquidity benefits provided by secondary markets

Listing shares in liquid secondary markets either to facilitate acquisitions or to diversify owner's personal wealth are among the most important reasons for firms to go public [Brau, J.C., Fawcett, S.E., 2006. Initial public offerings: An analysis of theory and practice. Journal of Finance 61, 399-436]. We contend that the expected benefits derived from the liquidity provided by secondary markets are relevant for understanding important decisions made in preparation for an IPO. We hypothesize that the potential losses caused by an IPO failure induce firms that benefit more from going public to hire more reputable underwriters and to adopt more conservative pricing policies. We use several proxies for the benefits firms derive from post-IPO liquidity. The results indicate that firms that benefited more from liquidity were taken public by more prestigious underwriters and exhibited substantially larger levels of price revisions and underpricing. Post-IPO liquidity is also important for understanding the decision to retain the lead underwriter in subsequent SEOs.IPO Liquidity

Market reactions to asset sales:: Effects of the Joint Venture Prerequisite

Summary We analyze the strategic issue of inter-firm resource transfer - i.e., the methods firms use to buy and sell assets. We introduce a typology of asset sale mechanisms delineated by levels of information uncertainty. We analyze this typology, by exploring how firms choose among the mechanisms and by exploring how they are rewarded by the financial markets for their choices. We find that factors involving the level of information asymmetry, the firm's bargaining power, the firm's current opportunities and pressures, and the firm's ability to engage in the various mechanisms, all correlate with both choices and rewards.Asset sale Joint venture Typology of mechanisms

Accurate depth-color scene modeling for 3D contents generation with low cost depth cameras

In this paper, we present a depth-color scene modeling strategy for indoors 3D contents generation. It combines depth and visual information provided by a low-cost active depth camera to improve the accuracy of the acquired depth maps considering the different dynamic nature of the scene elements. Accurate depth and color models of the scene background are iteratively built, and used to detect moving elements in the scene. The acquired depth data is continuously processed with an innovative joint-bilateral filter that efficiently combines depth and visual information thanks to the analysis of an edge-uncertainty map and the detected foreground regions. The main advantages of the proposed approach are: removing depth maps spatial noise and temporal random fluctuations; refining depth data at object boundaries, generating iteratively a robust depth and color background model and an accurate moving object silhouette