IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v66y2018i2p374-395.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financing acquisitions with earnouts

Author

Listed:
  • Bates, Thomas W.
  • Neyland, Jordan B.
  • Wang, Yolanda Yulong

Abstract

We present evidence that earnout agreements in acquisition contracts provide a substantial source of financing for acquirers. Acquirers in transactions with earnouts are significantly more likely to be financially constrained, face tighter credit market conditions, and use less debt and equity to fund acquisitions. Financially constrained acquirers also book lower fair values for the contingent claim. Earnout use is more likely in transactions that involve liquid sellers, and earnout bids garner higher transaction valuation multiples. Overall, the evidence suggests that earnouts are an economically material and increasingly common source of acquisition financing for acquirers with limited access to external capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Bates, Thomas W. & Neyland, Jordan B. & Wang, Yolanda Yulong, 2018. "Financing acquisitions with earnouts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 374-395.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:66:y:2018:i:2:p:374-395
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2018.08.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410118300429
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jacceco.2018.08.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isil Erel & Yeejin Jang & Michael S. Weisbach, 2015. "Do Acquisitions Relieve Target Firms’ Financial Constraints?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 289-328, February.
    2. Lown, Cara & Morgan, Donald P., 2006. "The Credit Cycle and the Business Cycle: New Findings Using the Loan Officer Opinion Survey," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(6), pages 1575-1597, September.
    3. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    4. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1997. "Trade Credit: Theories and Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(3), pages 661-691.
    5. Officer, Micah S., 2007. "The price of corporate liquidity: Acquisition discounts for unlisted targets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 571-598, March.
    6. Cain, Matthew D. & Denis, David J. & Denis, Diane K., 2011. "Earnouts: A study of financial contracting in acquisition agreements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 151-170, February.
    7. Lamont, Owen & Polk, Christopher & Saa-Requejo, Jesus, 2001. "Financial Constraints and Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 529-554.
    8. Fazzari, Steven M & Hubbard, R Glenn & Petersen, Bruce C, 1988. "Investment, Financing Decisions, and Tax Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 200-205, May.
    9. Brian Cadman & Richard Carrizosa & Lucile Faurel, 2014. "Economic Determinants and Information Environment Effects of Earnouts: New Insights from SFAS 141(R)," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 37-74, March.
    10. Horrace, William C. & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2006. "Results on the bias and inconsistency of ordinary least squares for the linear probability model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 321-327, March.
    11. Anil K Kashyap & Owen A. Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 1994. "Credit Conditions and the Cyclical Behavior of Inventories," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 565-592.
    12. Sudheer Chava & Michael R. Roberts, 2008. "How Does Financing Impact Investment? The Role of Debt Covenants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2085-2121, October.
    13. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    14. Aboody, David & Kasznik, Ron & Williams, Michael, 2000. "Purchase versus pooling in stock-for-stock acquisitions: Why do firms care?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 261-286, June.
    15. Kohers, Ninon & Ang, James, 2000. "Earnouts in Mergers: Agreeing to Disagree and Agreeing to Stay," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(3), pages 445-476, July.
    16. Micah S. Officer & Annette B. Poulsen & Mike Stegemoller, 2009. "Target-firm information asymmetry and acquirer returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 13(3), pages 467-493.
    17. Michael Faulkender & Rong Wang, 2006. "Corporate Financial Policy and the Value of Cash," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1957-1990, August.
    18. Ivashina, Victoria & Scharfstein, David, 2010. "Bank lending during the financial crisis of 2008," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 319-338, September.
    19. Rhodes-Kropf, Matthew & Robinson, David T. & Viswanathan, S., 2005. "Valuation waves and merger activity: The empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 561-603, September.
    20. Eva K. Lee & Helder I. Nakaya & Fan Yuan & Troy D. Querec & Greg Burel & Ferdinand H. Pietz & Bernard A. Benecke & Bali Pulendran, 2016. "Machine Learning for Predicting Vaccine Immunogenicity," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 46(5), pages 368-390, October.
    21. Cain, Matthew D. & Denis, David J. & Denis, Diane K., 2011. "Earnouts: A study of financial contracting in acquisition agreements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 151-170.
    22. Audra L. Boone & J. Harold Mulherin, 2007. "How Are Firms Sold?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 847-875, April.
    23. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Jeffrey J Reuer & Oded Shenkar & Roberto Ragozzino, 2004. "Mitigating risk in international mergers and acquisitions: the role of contingent payouts," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 35(1), pages 19-32, January.
    25. Smith, Richard L & Kim, Joo-Hyun, 1994. "The Combined Effects of Free Cash Flow and Financial Slack on Bidder and Target Stock Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(2), pages 281-310, April.
    26. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello & Michael S. Weisbach, 2004. "The Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1777-1804, August.
    27. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    28. Biais, Bruno & Gollier, Christian, 1997. "Trade Credit and Credit Rationing," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 903-937.
    29. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    30. Chava, Sudheer & Gallmeyer, Michael & Park, Heungju, 2015. "Credit conditions and stock return predictability," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 117-132.
    31. Hertzel, Michael G & Smith, Richard L, 1993. "Market Discounts and Shareholder Gains for Placing Equity Privately," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 459-485, June.
    32. Datar, Srikant & Frankel, Richard & Wolfson, Mark, 2001. "Earnouts: The Effects of Adverse Selection and Agency Costs on Acquisition Techniques," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 201-238, April.
    33. Duchin, Ran & Ozbas, Oguzhan & Sensoy, Berk A., 2010. "Costly external finance, corporate investment, and the subprime mortgage credit crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 418-435, September.
    34. Kasznik, Ron & Aboody, David & Williams, Michael, 2000. "Purchase versus Pooling in Stock-for-Stock Acquisitions: Why Do Firms Care?," Research Papers 1614, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    35. Harford, Jarrad & Uysal, Vahap B., 2014. "Bond market access and investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 147-163.
    36. Harford, Jarrad, 2005. "What drives merger waves?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 529-560, September.
    37. Uysal, Vahap B., 2011. "Deviation from the target capital structure and acquisition choices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 602-620.
    38. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Krukowski, Kipp A. & DeTienne, Dawn R., 2022. "Selling a business after the pandemic? How crisis and information asymmetry affect deal terms," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 617-630.
    2. Gada, Viswa Prasad & Goyal, Lakshmi & Popli, Manish, 2021. "Earnouts in M&A deal structuring: The impact of CEO prevention focus," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    3. Ferguson, Andrew & Hu, Wei & Lam, Peter, 2022. "Political uncertainty and deal structure: Evidence from Australian mining project acquisitions," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Leonidas G. Barbopoulos & Jo Danbolt, 2021. "The real effects of earnout contracts in M&As," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 607-639, September.
    5. Monaco, Eleonora & Ibikunle, Gbenga & Palumbo, Riccardo & Zhang, Zeyu, 2022. "The liquidity and trading activity effects of acquisition payment methods: Evidence from the announcements of private firms' acquisitions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    6. Adra, Samer & Barbopoulos, Leonidas G. & Saunders, Anthony, 2020. "The impact of monetary policy on M&A outcomes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    7. Camelia Minoiu & Rebecca Zarutskie & Andrei Zlate, 2021. "Motivating Banks to Lend? Credit Spillover Effects of the Main Street Lending Program," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-078, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    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. Merkoulova, Yulia & Zivanovic, Branislav, 2022. "Financial constraints and financing sources in mergers and acquisitions," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Usman, Adam, 2022. "Cash holdings and real asset liquidity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Almaghrabi, Khadija S., 2023. "Non‐operating risk and cash holdings: Evidence from pension risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. Sean Cleary & Ashrafee Hossain, 2020. "POSTCRISIS M&As AND THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 43(2), pages 407-454, May.
    5. Douglas (DJ) Fairhurst, 2020. "Financing seasonal demand," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(3), pages 839-870, September.
    6. Yang, Junhong & Guariglia, Alessandra & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2019. "To what extent does corporate liquidity affect M&A decisions, method of payment and performance? Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 128-152.
    7. Schauer, Catharina & Elsas, Ralf & Breitkopf, Nikolas, 2019. "A new measure of financial constraints applicable to private and public firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 270-295.
    8. Huang, Winifred & Mazouz, Khelifa, 2018. "Excess cash, trading continuity, and liquidity risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 275-291.
    9. Bhagat, Sanjai & Klasa, Sandy & Litov, Lubomir P., 2014. "The Use of Escrow Contracts in Acquisition Agreements," Working Papers 13-19, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    10. Lee, Choonsik & Park, Heungju, 2016. "Financial constraints, board governance standards, and corporate cash holdings," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 21-34.
    11. Falavigna, Greta & Ippoliti, Roberto, 2023. "SMEs’ behavior under financial constraints: An empirical investigation on the legal environment and the substitution effect with tax arrears," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. Samuel Jebaraj Benjamin, 2019. "The Effect of Financial Constraints on Audit Fees," Capital Markets Review, Malaysian Finance Association, vol. 27(2), pages 59-87.
    13. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello & Igor Cunha & Michael S. Weisbach, 2014. "Corporate Liquidity Management: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 135-162, December.
    14. Wang, Yolanda Yulong, 2023. "Corporate diversification, investment efficiency and the business cycle11This work is supported by Shenzhen Humanities & Social Sciences Key Research Bases," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Li, Xiafei & Luo, Di, 2019. "Financial constraints, stock liquidity, and stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Choonsik Lee & Heungju Park, 2016. "Financial constraints, board governance standards, and corporate cash holdings," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 21-34, January.
    17. Yolanda Yulong Wang, 2023. "Corporate diversification, investment efficiency and the business cycle," Post-Print hal-04005692, HAL.
    18. Neyland, Jordan & Shekhar, Chander, 2018. "How much is too much? Large termination fees and target distress," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 97-112.
    19. Eckbo, B. Espen, 2009. "Bidding strategies and takeover premiums: A review," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 149-178, February.
    20. Corsten, Daniel & Gropp, Reint E. & Markou, Panos, 2017. "Suppliers as liquidity insurers," IWH Discussion Papers 8/2017, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).

    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:eee:jaecon:v:66:y:2018:i:2:p:374-395. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    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.