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Asset Stripping
Asset stripping is a term used to refer to the practice of selling off a company's assets in order to improve returns for equity investors. In many cases where the term is used, a financial investor, referred to as a ' corporate raider', takes control of another company and then auctions off the acquired company's assets. The term is generally used in a pejorative sense as such activity is not considered helpful to the company. The proceeds of the sale of assets may be used to lower the company's net debt. Alternatively, they may be used to pay a dividend to equityholders, leaving the company with lower net worth – i.e. the same level of debt but fewer assets (and weaker earnings) to support that debt. With a lower level of assets, some argue that the business is rendered less financially stable or viable. For example, the sale-and-leaseback of a building would lead to an increased rental bill for the company. Asset stripping is a highly controversial topic within the financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asset
In financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash (although cash itself is also considered an asset). The balance sheet of a firm records the monetaryThere are different methods of assessing the monetary value of the assets recorded on the Balance Sheet. In some cases, the ''Historical Cost'' is used; such that the value of the asset when it was bought in the past is used as the monetary value. In other instances, the present fair market value of the asset is used to determine the value shown on the balance sheet. value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business. Assets can be grouped into two major classes: tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets contain various subclasses, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phones 4u
Phones 4u was a large independent mobile phone retailer in the United Kingdom. It was part of the 4u Group based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. Opening in 1996, it expanded to over 600 stores. On 14 September 2014, EE and Vodafone, the company's final remaining suppliers, ended their contracts. The company entered administration on 15 September 2014 with PricewaterhouseCoopers appointed as administrators. History In 1987, John Caudwell and his brother Brian founded ''Midlands Mobile Phones'', a wholesaler and distributor of mobile phones. The company became the Caudwell Group, whose high street retail arm was named Phones 4u. On 26 September 2006, The Caudwell Group was sold for a sum of £1.47 billion to private equity firms Providence Equity Partners and Doughty Hanson & Co. In February 2008, the group bought online retailer Dialaphone in a deal worth an estimated £9 million. In July 2010, Phones 4u partnered with electrical chain Dixons to place 49 concessi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vulture Fund
A vulture fund is a hedge fund, private-equity fund or distressed debt fund, that invests in debt considered to be very weak or in default, known as distressed securities. Investors in the fund profit by buying debt at a discounted price on a secondary market and then using numerous methods to subsequently sell the debt for a larger amount than the purchasing price. Debtors include companies, countries, and individuals. Vulture funds have had success in bringing attachment and recovery actions against sovereign debtor governments, usually settling with them before realizing the attachments in forced sales. Settlements typically are made at a discount in hard or local currency or in the form of new debt issuance. In one instance involving Peru, such a seizure threatened payments to other creditors of the sovereign obliger. History Sovereign debt collection was rare until the 1950s when sovereign immunity of government issuers started to become restricted by contract terms. Thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunneling (fraud)
Tunneling or tunnelling is financial fraud committed by "the transfer of assets and profits out of firms for the benefit of those who control them". In legal terms, this is known as a fraudulent transfer, such as when a group of major shareholders or the management of a publicly-traded company orders that company to sell off its assets to a second company at unreasonably low prices. The shareholders or management typically own the second company outright, and thus profit from the otherwise disastrous sale. Tunneling differs from outright theft because people who engage in tunneling generally comply with all of the relevant legal procedures; it is thus a subtler scheme than simply writing checks from a company to a private bank account. While people widely agree that tunneling is unethical, penalties for it vary widely; some states impose criminal sanctions, whereas other states provide either for civil suits only, or for no sanctions at all. Origin The word ''tunneling'' was pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leveraged Buyout
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money ( leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loans, along with the assets of the acquiring company. The use of debt, which normally has a lower cost of capital than equity, serves to reduce the overall cost of financing the acquisition. The cost of debt is lower because interest payments often reduce corporate income tax liability, whereas dividend payments normally do not. This reduced cost of financing allows greater gains to accrue to the equity, and, as a result, the debt serves as a lever to increase the returns to the equity. The term LBO is usually employed when a financial sponsor acquires a company. However, many corporate transactions are partially funded by bank debt, thus effectively also representing an LBO. LBOs can have many different forms such as management buyout (MBO ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Junk Bond
In finance, a high-yield bond (non-investment-grade bond, speculative-grade bond, or junk bond) is a bond that is rated below investment grade by credit rating agencies. These bonds have a higher risk of default or other adverse credit events, but offer higher yields than investment-grade bonds in order to compensate for the increased risk. Default risk As indicated by their lower credit ratings, high-yield debt entails more risk to the investor compared to investment grade bonds. Investors require a greater yield to compensate them for investing in the riskier securities. In the case of high-yield bonds, the risk is largely that of default: the possibility that the issuer will be unable to make scheduled interest and principal payments in a timely manner. The default rate in the high-yield sector of the U.S. bond market has averaged about 5% over the long term. During the liquidity crisis of 1989-90, the default rate was in the 5.6% to 7% range. During the pandemic of 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Raid
In business, a corporate raid is the process of buying a large stake in a corporation and then using shareholder voting rights to require the company to undertake novel measures designed to increase the share value, generally in opposition to the desires and practices of the corporation's current management. The measures might include replacing top executives, downsizing operations, or liquidating the company. Corporate raids were particularly common between the 1970s and the 1990s in the United States. By the end of the 1980s, management of many large publicly traded corporations had adopted legal countermeasures designed to thwart potential hostile takeovers and corporate raids, including poison pills, golden parachutes, and increases in debt levels on the company's balance sheet. In later years, some corporate raiding practices have been used by "activist shareholders", who purchase equity stakes in a corporation to influence its board of directors and put public pressure o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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