IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/1191.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Conglomeration with bankruptcy costs: Separate or joint financing?

Author

Abstract

The paper analyzes the determinants of the optimal scope of incorporation in the presence of bankruptcy costs. Bankruptcy costs alone generate a non-trivial tradeoff between the benefit of coinsurance and the cost of risk contamination associated to joint financing corporate projects through debt. This tradeoff is characterized for projects with binary returns, depending on the distributional characteristics of returns (mean, variability, skewness, heterogeneity, correlation, and number of projects), the bankruptcy recovery rate, and the tax rate advantage of debt relative to equity. Our testable predictions are broadly consistent with existing empirical evidence on conglomerate mergers, spin-offs, project finance, and securitization.

Suggested Citation

  • Albert Banal-Estañol & Marco Ottaviani, 2009. "Conglomeration with bankruptcy costs: Separate or joint financing?," Economics Working Papers 1191, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/1191.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim, E Han & McConnell, John J, 1977. "Corporate Mergers and the Co-insurance of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 349-365, May.
    2. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1998. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 1-41.
    3. Sherrill Shaffer, 1989. "Pooling intensifies joint failure risk," Working Papers 89-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    4. Gary B. Gorton & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2007. "Special Purpose Vehicles and Securitization," NBER Chapters, in: The Risks of Financial Institutions, pages 549-597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Kim, E Han, 1978. "A Mean-Variance Theory of Optimal Capital Structure and Corporate Debt Capacity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(1), pages 45-63, March.
    6. Roman Inderst & Holger M. Müller, 2003. "Internal versus External Financing: An Optimal Contracting Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1033-1062, June.
    7. Hayne E. Leland, 2007. "Financial Synergies and the Optimal Scope of the Firm: Implications for Mergers, Spinoffs, and Structured Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 765-807, April.
    8. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    9. Douglas Gale & Martin Hellwig, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 647-663.
    10. Levy, Haim & Sarnat, Marshall, 1970. "Diversification, Portfolio Analysis and the Uneasy Case for Conglomerate Mergers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(4), pages 795-802, September.
    11. Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1990. "A Theory of Predation Based on Agency Problems in Financial Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 93-106, March.
    12. Scott, James H, Jr, 1977. "On the Theory of Conglomerate Mergers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1235-1250, September.
    13. Lewellen, Wilbur G, 1971. "A Pure Financial Rationale for the Conglomerate Merger," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 521-537, May.
    14. Alderson, Michael J. & Betker, Brian L., 1995. "Liquidation costs and capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 45-69, September.
    15. Weiss, Lawrence A., 1990. "Bankruptcy resolution: Direct costs and violation of priority of claims," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 285-314, October.
    16. Altman, Edward I, 1984. "A Further Empirical Investigation of the Bankruptcy Cost Question," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1067-1089, September.
    17. Warner, Jerold B, 1977. "Bankruptcy Costs: Some Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 337-347, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Albert Banal-Estañol & Marco Ottaviani & Andrew Winton, 2013. "The Flip Side of Financial Synergies: Coinsurance Versus Risk Contamination," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(12), pages 3142-3181.
    2. Guillermo Ordoñez, 2013. "The Asymmetric Effects of Financial Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 844-895.
    3. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    4. Fiorella De Fiore & Harald Uhlig, 2005. "Bank finance versus bond finance: what explains the differences between US and Europe?," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2005-042, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    5. Hege, Ulrich, 2003. "Workouts, court-supervised reorganization and the choice between private and public debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 233-269, March.
    6. João Pinto & Mário Coutinho dos Santos, 2014. "Corporate Financing Choices after the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    7. Jieying Hong & Rui Zhang, 2023. "Manager‐specific shocks, financial constraints and conglomerate merger," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 46-59, February.
    8. Luc Renneboog & Peter G. Szilagyi, 2008. "Corporate Restructuring and Bondholder Wealth," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(4), pages 792-819, September.
    9. Fachat, Christian, 2000. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and the Credit Channel of Monetary Transmission," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 3/2000, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    10. (Kim | Lopez-Salido | Swanson) & Andrew Levin, 2004. "The magnitude and Cyclical Behavior of Financial Market Frictions," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 224, Society for Computational Economics.
    11. Arping, Stefan & Diaw, Khaled M., 2008. "Sunk costs, entry deterrence, and financial constraints," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 490-501, March.
    12. Anderson, Ronald W. & Nyborg, Kjell G., 2011. "Financing and corporate growth under repeated moral hazard," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    13. Carlstrom, Charles T. & Fuerst, Timothy S., 2001. "Monetary shocks, agency costs, and business cycles," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-27, June.
    14. Wang, Kun Tracy & Wu, Yue & Sun, Aonan, 2021. "Acquisitions and the cost of debt: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Cleary, Sean & Povel, Paul & Raith, Michael, 2007. "The U-Shaped Investment Curve: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 1-39, March.
    16. Mathias Dewatripont & Patrick Legros & Steven A. Matthews, 2003. "Moral Hazard and Capital Structure Dynamics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 890-930, June.
    17. Troya-Martinez, Marta, 2017. "Self-enforcing trade credit," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 333-357.
    18. Hind Sami, 2005. "Financial Distress and Reputational Concerns," Working Papers 0509, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    19. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    20. Oliver Hart, 2001. "Financial Contracting," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1079-1100, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bankruptcy; conglomeration; mergers; spin-offs; project finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.