Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2013 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: summa cum laude, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: The contribution of this study is manifold and relevant for academics and practitioners alike. It adds to the literature in the fields of corporate finance, financial accounting and stochastic modeling. In particular, this dissertation provides answers to the following questions: given the less efficient markets, can specialists as financial analysts provide additional information, which contain investment value? How can the true value of a company be determined with publicly available data and can discrepancies between fundamental and market values be exploited? Finally, is it possible to assess the firm’s financial health and its likelihood of failure several years into the future? Adressing these questions, the study first illustrates the company valuation assessment by financial analysts as summarized in their target prices and the information processing by analysts and investors in detail. Second, this thesis offers a novel empirical implementation of a model for fundamental company valuation that employs accounting data. In this context it demonstrates severe over- and undervaluation from a fundamental perspective in the U.S. technology sector over the last 20 years. Both the analysts’ company valuation captured by their target prices and the implementation of the fundamental company valuation model translate into significant investment value before and after transaction costs, which supports the notion of non-efficient markets. Finally, one major contribution is to evaluate a new approach for bankruptcy prediction that is based on stochastic processes. It is theoretically appealing and performs better especially for longer forecast horizons than standard methods.

An essential guide to business valuation and bankruptcy Business Valuation and Bankruptcy helps you-whether you are an accountant dealing with a troubled company, a lender, an investor, a bankruptcy and restructuring lawyer/financial advisor, or a private equity player-to focus on solving everyday and case determinative disputes when creditors, lenders, and debtors have differing views of value. Introducing valuation issues early on in the restructuring/bankruptcy process so you can plan accordingly, this book offers Many real life case examples, case descriptions, and tables to demonstrate the applicable sections of the Bankruptcy Laws A review of the methods, applications, pros and cons of restructuring with the basic tools to understanding it A description of the life cycle of a troubled company and the various stages of a restructuring An analysis of the valuation issues that confront practitioners in the real world of application of the law Business Valuation and Bankruptcy is written in terms that are common to bankruptcy professionals and is essential, timely reading for players in the bankruptcy and restructuring environment.

A comprehensive look at the enormous growth and evolution of distressed debt, corporate bankruptcy, and credit risk default This Third Edition of the most authoritative finance book on the topic updates and expands its discussion of corporate distress and bankruptcy, as well as the related markets dealing with high-yield and distressed debt, and offers state-of-the-art analysis and research on the costs of bankruptcy, credit default prediction, the post-emergence period performance of bankrupt firms, and more.

Bankruptcy prediction is one of the most important research areas in corporate finance. Bankruptcies are an indispensable element of the functioning of the market economy, and at the same time generate significant losses for stakeholders. Hence, this book was established to collect the results of research on the latest trends in predicting the bankruptcy of enterprises. It suggests models developed for different countries using both traditional and more advanced methods. Problems connected with predicting bankruptcy during periods of prosperity and recession, the selection of appropriate explanatory variables, as well as the dynamization of models are presented. The reliability of financial data and the validity of the audit are also referenced. Thus, I hope that this book will inspire you to undertake new research in the field of forecasting the risk of bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy prediction model Z-ScoreM for Italian Manufacturing Listed Companies and Z'-ScoreM for Italian Industrial Company. The work stems from the study of the probability of default started in 2007 and continues today. In particular, this analysis is taken up with the study of the Rating and the credit and liquidity risk carried out during the author's research doctorate. The study is the continuation of other recently published author's e-books. The main objective is to identify a model for Italian companies based on Altman's Z-Score variables. Several researchers have analyzed the probability of failure of large companies, listed or emerging markets, other authors have tried to create a dashboard useful for the analysis of key indicators to be monitored, but this research differs for the creation of a specific indicator for the Italian Industrial Companies based on Altman variables.