Mergers, Acquisitions, Restructurings and Bankruptcies

Introduction

Please note that this is a preliminary course description. The final version will be published in June 2027.

The life (and death) of a company depends sometimes on expansion and sometimes on shrinking. When making strategic choices, corporate decision makers need to understand why, when, and how to acquire other companies or to merge with other companies. Other times companies struggle to pay their debt. A company is in financial distress when debt repayments are due, and it does not have enough cash to make the payments. In this situation, the company must either restructure its funding and operations or petition for the opening of liquidation proceedings. Restructuring efforts may involve selling off assets, negotiating more beneficial payment terms with creditors and/or performing financial restructuring through restructuring proceedings. To decide whether the company should be liquidated or if there are grounds for continued operations, it is necessary to have deep knowledge of financial and legal rules pertaining to financial distress and bankruptcy proceedings – i.e., liquidation proceedings and restructuring proceedings.

Course content

1. Mergers and Acquisitions
   • Introduction
   • Transaction types
   • Structuring the transaction
   • Valuation and financial analysis
   • Negotiating the deal
   • Executing the deal
   • Asset transactions vs. M&A
   • Private equity
2. Restructuring and bankruptcy
   • Reasons for corporate failure
   • Leveraged finance market
   • Valuation of distressed firms
   • Restructuring and the cost of financial distress
   • Corporate divestitures
   • Investing in distressed firm securities
   • The high-yield bond market.
   • Credit risk and distress prediction models