Sky Blog
The media often highlights hefty CEO compensation packages featuring lucrative stock grants, restricted shares, and stock options. The rationale for offering such equity-type compensation to top executives is to align the interests of managers and shareholders to mitigate agency conflicts …
In a recent paper, we make the case for a smart contract-based automated restructuring framework that can be used by any firm that issues equity and debt securities in tokenized form. The paper is the basis for an actual smart-contract …
Over recent decades, and especially since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis (GFC), the corporate finance markets have changed considerably. First, there is more corporate debt now than ever. The 2023 banking crisis, and the ongoing macroeconomic conditions, further highlight …
In late March, Argentina and the IMF agreed on a new arrangement that would enable Argentina to avoid falling into arrears on the IMF’s 2018 loan. However, the agreement was reached only after protracted and tortuous negotiations that dragged on …
The financial media provide information to investors by monitoring firms for fraud, excessive CEO pay, and other questionable behavior, as well as mundane activities such as periodic earnings announcements. However, it is unclear why certain firms get extensive media …
Debt has been a ubiquitous form of finance for millennia, and one might reasonably assume that we have a good handle on exactly what it is by now. It turns out that may not be the case.
A loan is …
Almost all countries have historically allowed businesses to write off interest expenses against taxable income. Critics argue that the tax-favored status of debt has created a corporate debt pile-up, thereby exacerbating economic downturns. This argument, which gained more attention after …
The transactional plumbing of corporate debt payment systems is hardly where one expects to find watershed legal moments; and it usually lives up to that mundane reputation. But every so often, real disputes emerge, and they are often doozies. Such …
The pandemic has blown huge holes in most state budgets. Now, with the advent of the Biden Administration and a Democratic Congress, there is a reasonable chance that substantial federal aid is coming – finally.
Given this turn of …
These are exceptional times, and policymakers are taking exceptional measures in public health, public finance, monetary policy, and public law. Among the latter, of great relevance to corporate governance are the rules broadening governments’ powers to authorize large share block …
When it comes to responding to the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., the Federal Reserve has emerged as one of the most active institutions at the national level. Its bold and timely interventions have halted a monetary breakdown that would …
In a recent paper, we argue that outside investors are cautious about financing start-ups because such companies often lack a track record and tend to be managed in a less-than professional manner, with founders sometimes putting their own interests …
The allocation of control rights between entrepreneurs and capital providers plays a central role in financial contracting and corporate governance. Debt contracts typically include accounting-based covenants that transfer control rights to lenders when accounting numbers (such as earnings) fall below …
Bloomberg’s multi-talented Matt Levine recently wrote:
One of my favorite recent stories in bond documents is the one about how private equity firms changed a sentence in bond documents, which usually says that companies can’t make restricted payments if “a …
2019 was another strong year for corporate borrowers, continuing a decade-long run marked by historically low interest rates and strong credit markets. Over the last 10 years, total U.S. corporate bonds outstanding rose from $6 trillion to nearly $10 trillion, …
For almost two years, Argentina has been facing a severe economic recession and has not had the ability to access international capital markets. This has been due to several factors, including a general capital flight from emerging markets following the …
Economies and markets operate on the assumption that U.S. debt securities (“Treasuries”) are risk-free. This means that the United States is expected to pay its debts. Also, Treasuries are supposed to trade easily and efficiently in secondary markets. Unsurprisingly, the …
Investment expenditure in Europe collapsed in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. This collapse followed a boom during which the corporate sector borrowed heavily (Gopinath, Kalemli-Ozcan, Karabarbounis, Villegas-Sanchez, 2017). Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the extent of the …
Early 2019 has seen a wave of issuances of secured bonds to finance large acquisitions. The likelihood of slower rate increases by the Fed has led to an uptick in investor demand for secured bonds while making the pricing on …
Personal bankruptcy is pervasive in the U.S.—about one in 10 Americans will declare bankruptcy in his lifetime.1 Under the U.S. bankruptcy code, households are protected by limited liability. That is, they can discharge their debt and still keep a substantial …