The effectiveness of the “Processo Especial de Revitalização” as an instrument of corporate restructuring in the context of the current economic crisis

This work project intends to evaluate the effectiveness of the Portuguese Government’s strategy to promote the orderly deleveraging of the corporate sector in the context of the current economic crisis. The recommendations of the Troika and the commitments assumed under the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Government in 2011 required the creation of formal processes to avoid disorderly deleveraging. Conclusions and recommendations were drawn based on past experiences of large-scale corporate restructuring strategies in other countries and on the analysis of financial and statistical data on companies applying for “Programa Especial de Revitalização”.

Cabelte restructuring by OxyCapital

This case study describes OxyCapital’s intervention in Cabelte’s operational and financial restructuring. Despite Cabelte’s strong debt burden, OxyCapital believed that the Group’s financial difficulties were temporary and that it had growth potential if the said restructuring would be implemented. Hence, while striving for an operational turnaround, OxyCapital managed to reach an agreement among not only the several banks but also the Group’s shareholder for the financial restructuring. The transaction included the acquisition of a majority stake on the Group’s share capital and of a significant part of Cabelte’s bank debt by OxyCapital’s Corporate Restructuring Fund.

Essays on corporate restructuring

Esta tese tem por objetivo examinar as características do processo de decisão em que credores optam pela recuperação judicial ou liquidação da empresa em dificuldade financeira. O trabalho está dividido em quatro capítulos. No segundo capítulo, apresenta-se, de forma sistematizada, referencial teórico e evidências empíricas para apontar resultados importantes sobre estudos desenvolvidos nas áreas de recuperação de empresas e falência. O capítulo também apresenta três estudos de caso com o propósito de mostrar a complexidade de cada caso no que diz respeito à concentração de recursos, conflito de interesse entre as classes de credores e a decisão final sobre a aprovação ou rejeição do plano de recuperação judicial. No terceiro capítulo, analisam-se os determinantes do atraso pertinente à votação do plano de recuperação judicial. O trabalho propõe um estudo empírico dos atrasos entre 2005 e 2014. Os resultados sugerem que: (i) maior concentração da dívida entre as classes de credores possui relação com atrasos menores; (ii) maior quantidade de bancos para votar o plano de recuperação judicial possui relação com maiores atrasos; (iii) o atraso médio na votação diminui quando apenas uma classe de credores participa da votação do plano; (iv) credores trabalhistas e com garantia real atrasam a votação quando o valor dos ativos para garantir a dívida em caso de liquidação é maior; (v) o atraso médio na votação é maior em casos de pior desempenho do setor de atuação do devedor, sendo solicitado pelas classes quirografária e com garantia real; e (vi) a proposta de venda de ativos é o principal tópico discutido nas reuniões de votação do plano nos casos em que o atraso na votação é maior. Por fim, no quarto capítulo, apresenta-se evidência sobre a votação dos credores e a probabilidade de aprovação do plano de recuperação judicial. Os resultados sugerem que: (i) credores trabalhistas estão propensos a aprovar o plano de recuperação mesmo quando o plano é rejeitado pelas demais classes; (ii) planos com propostas de pagamento mais heterogêneas para as três classes de credores possuem menor chance de serem aceitos; (iii) a chance de aprovação do plano diminui nos casos em que mais credores quirografários participam da recuperação; e (iv) planos com proposta de venda de ativos possuem maior chance de serem aprovados. Finalmente, maior concentração da dívida na classe com garantia real diminui a chance de aprovação do plano, e o contrário ocorre na classe quirografária.

Corporate restructuring: empirical evidence from the UK

Corporate restructuring is perceived as a challenge to research. Prior studies do not provide conclusive evidence regarding the effects of restructuring. Since there are discernible findings, this research attempts to examine the effects of restructuring events amongst the UK listed firms. The sample firms are listed in the LSE and London AIM stock exchange. Only completed restructuring transactions are included in the study. The time horizon extends from year 1999 to 2003. A three-year floating window is assigned to examine the sample firms. The key enquiry is to scrutinise the ex post effects of restructuring on performance and value measures of firms with contrast to a matched criteria non-restructured sample. A cross sectional study employing logit estimate is undertaken to examine firm characteristics of restructuring samples. Further, additional parameters, i.e. Conditional Volatility and Asymmetry are generated under the GJR-GARCH estimate and reiterated in logit models to capture time-varying heteroscedasticity of the samples. This research incorporates most forms of restructurings, while prior studies have examined certain forms of restructuring. Particularly, these studies have made limited attempts to examine different restructuring events simultaneously. In addition to logit analysis, an event study is adopted to evaluate the announcement effect of restructuring under both the OLS and GJR-GARCH estimate supplementing our prior results. By engaging a composite empirical framework, our estimation method validates a full appreciation of restructuring effect. The study provides evidence that restructurings indicate non-trivial significant positive effect. There are some evidences that the response differs because of the types of restructuring, particularly while event study is applied. The results establish that performance measures, i.e. Operating Profit Margin, Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Growth, Size, Profit Margin and Shareholders' Ownership indicate consistent and significant increase. However, Leverage and Asset Turn Over suggest reasonable influence on restructuring across the sample period. Similarly, value measures, i.e. Abnormal Returns, Return on Equity and Cash Flow Margin suggest sizeable improvement. A notable characteristic seen coherently throughout the analysis is the decreasing proportion of Systematic Risk. Consistent with these findings, Conditional Volatility and Asymmetry exhibit similar trend. The event study analysis suggests that on an average market perceives restructuring favourably and shareholders experience significant and systematic positive gain.

Essays on corporate governance, stakeholders, and restructuring

This dissertation consists of an introductory section and three theoretical essays analyzing the interaction of corporate governance and restructuring. The essays adopt an incomplete contracts approach and analyze the role of different institutional designs to facilitate the alignment of the objectives of shareholders and management (or employees) over the magnitude of corporate restructuring. The first essay analyzes how a firm's choice of production technology affects the employees' human capital investment. In the essay, the owners of the firm can choose between a specific and a general technology that both require a costly human capital investment by the employees. The specific technology is initially superior in using the human capital of employees but, in contrast to the general technology, it is not compatible with future innovations. As a result, anticipated changes in the specific technology diminish the ex ante incentives of the employees to invest in human capital unless the shareholders grant the employees specific governance mechanisms (a right of veto, severance pay) so as to protect their investments. The results of the first essay indicate that the level of protection that the shareholders are willing to offer falls short of the socially desirable one. Furthermore, when restructuring opportunities become more abundant, it becomes more attractive both socially and from the viewpoint of the shareholders to initially adopt the general technology. The second essay analyzes how the allocation of authority within the firm interacts with the owners' choice of business strategy when the ability of the owners to monitor the project proposals of the management is biased in favor of the status quo strategy. The essay shows that a bias in the monitoring ability will affect not only the allocation of authority within the firm but also the choice of business strategy. Especially, when delegation has positive managerial incentive effects, delegation turns out to be more attractive under the new business strategy because the improved managerial incentives are a way for the owners to compensate their own reduced information gathering ability. This effect, however, simultaneously makes the owners hesitant to switch the strategy since it would involve a more frequent loss of control over the project choice. Consequently, the owners' lack of knowledge of the new business strategy may lead to a suboptimal choice of strategy. The third essay analyzes the implications of CEO succession process for the ideal board structure. In this essay, the presence of the departing CEO on the board facilitates the ability of the board to find a matching successor and to counsel him. However, the ex-CEO's presence may simultaneously also weaken the ability of the board to restructure since the predecessor may use the opportunity to distort the successor's project choice. The results of the essay suggest that the extent of restructuring gains, the firm's ability to hire good outside directors and the importance of board's advisory role affect at which point and for how long the shareholders may want to nominate the predecessor to the board.

The Economics of State Aid for the Rescue and Restructuring of Firms in Difficulty: Theoretical Considerations, Empirical Analysis and Proposals for Reform. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 27/September 2013

State aid for rescue and restructuring (R&R) of companies in difficulty causes a significant distortion of competition. It prevents the market from eliminating inefficient companies. Because of this, the European Commission has to be specially strict when it assesses rescue or restructuring aid. This paper examines recent cases of corporate restructuring partly funded with public money. It explains the main aspects of the current guidelines which are applicable to R&R State Aid and establishes a theoretical framework for the economic assessment of R&R aid. It then analyses decisions adopted by the European Commission concerning R&R state aid during the period 2000-2013. It finds that there is little economic rationale in the granting of R&R aid. The paper concludes by applying the lessons drawn from the empirical analysis to the anticipated revision of the R&R guidelines in the context of the State Aid Modernisation process.

Restructuring In The Hospitality Industry

In her dialogue entitled - Restructuring in the Hospitality Industry - Elisa S. Moncarz, Associate Professor, the School of Hospitality Management at Florida International University, intends for you to know the following: “Recent years have seen a proliferation of restructurings of major American corporations creating an extremely important issue that has affected U.S. business. This article discusses restructuring issues in the hospitality industry, focusing attention on its causes and motivations, as well as on its benefits and perils. The author considers the impact of restructuring on investors and management while examining recent restructurings involving hospitality firms.” In defining the concept of restructuring, Associate Professor Moncarz informs you, “Restructuring entails the implementation of fundamental and comprehensive modification of a company's operational and/or financial structure.” “It has, indeed, become fashionable to take a company apart and put it back together in a different form,” the author says. Additionally, Moncarz refers to a Wall Street Journal study, dated August 1985, which reveals that nearly half the large American corporations were, or were soon to be restructured in the 1984/85 time frame. There are several distinct types of restructurings and the author wants you to be aware of some of them. “…threats of takeover attempts, the larger part of all restructuring have been initiated willingly in order to expand or divest a company's line of business (i.e., operational restructurings) or redirect its finances (i.e., financial restructurings),” the author reveals. “Two principal types of operational restructurings are mergers and acquisitions [M&A], and divestitures [disposing of unwanted units or assets],” Moncarz further defines the concepts of expansion and divestiture. The author explains several types of financial restructuring sketches used in the hospitality industry, including stock re-purchasing, debt issuances and redemptions, swapping debt for equity, and effective theories of realigning debt through extending loans and/or revising terms. To expand their businesses, Moncarz makes anecdotal reference to several major food and beverage corporations that have successfully employed operational restructuring principles. The author wades into the shallow end of the hostile takeover pool by explaining some of the corporate restructuring concepts used to repel that aggressive technique. Walt Disney Company completely redesigned their entire upper level management structure in a successful effort to thwart a hostile takeover bid by corporate raider Saul P. Steinberg, Moncarz informs. To close, the author touches on leveraged buyouts [LBOs], and stock repurchases to divest unwanted divisions and immobilize hostile takeover attempts. A lengthy table of - Selected Restructurings in the Hospitality Industry [1982 to date of article] – is also included.

Managerial experiences related to corporate demerger

In the current economic situation very few business operations are static. In some cases, organizations feel that the most rational solution is not expanding but focusing on their core competencies or certain areas of business through corporate restructuring. The focus in this thesis is on corporate demerger, a process that involves a complete separation of units within a company. Despite the vast amount of research considering corporate demergers, there is still a lack of knowledge about how top managers experience these kinds of organizational rearrangements. In this qualitative case study, the aim is to bring forward the thoughts of executives in two companies that emerged from a single company through corporate demerger a few years ago. By conducting dyadic semi-structured interviews with the management group and board members in both the parent company and the demerger company, I pursue to understand the impressions that they had during the demerger process as well as during the change that followed afterwards. Additionally, their retrospective sense-making patterns are briefly examined. The findings suggest that the way operations are managed before plays an important role in the demerger process. In this case the pre-demerger organization was quite distinctly divided into two business areas, which allowed a somewhat natural allocation of resources. In addition, apart from the top management, every employee knew their future company and role, thus decreasing the amount of uncertainty in lower organizational levels. Consequently, the ambiguity and change faced by the top executives was evidently more powerful compared to the operational actors. The fragmented characteristics also enabled certain points of reference in the unfolding demerger process. Along with the information about future management groups, the pre-demerger re-grouping took place. This sparked up the mental division, where both groups started to act separately. On a personal level, the managers involved in the demerger planning have made retrospective sense of the repercussions related to the restructuring process. For them, it was an extremely demanding, ambiguous and burdensome project that provided them with managerial experiences they are likely not to have again.

Vida y muerte empresarial. Estudios empíricos de perdurabilidad - de la morbilidad a la perdurabilidad, estudios empresas galardonadas Premio Ave Fenix

Con esta investigación se pretende hacer una aproximación a la identificación de los pasos que utilizaron las empresas para salir de la crisis empresarial que presentaban, analizando los posibles errores que hayan afectado significativamente a la empresa, en los ámbitos económicos, sociales y morales, esto con el fin de corregirlos y aprender de ellos logrando perdurar en el mercado laboral empresarial. A estas empresas que han pasado por estos procesos de mejoras continuas son nominadas al premio Ave Fénix como empresas de resurgimiento empresarial, este galardón reconoce el esfuerzo de las empresas que logran resurgir como el Ave Fénix, al superar las dificultades que las condujeron al acuerdo de restructuración empresarial que contempla la Ley 550/1999. Con este galardón, la Universidad del Rosario en cooperación con la Superintendencia de Sociedades reconocen a las empresas que, en medio de una crisis, abocadas a un proceso de liquidación voluntaria u obligatoria, han demostrado tenacidad al resurgir - de la mano de Supersociedades - o las que se reestructuran y se establecen así como ejemplos de perdurabilidad y constancia.

School effectiveness: new managerialism, quality and the Japanisation of education

School effectiveness is a microtechnology of change. It is a relay device, which transfers macro policy into everyday processes and priorities in schools. It is part of the growing apparatus of performance evaluation. Change is brought about by a focus on the school as a site-based system to be managed. There has been corporate restructuring in response to the changing political economy of education. There are now new work regimes and radical changes in organizational cultures. Education, like other public services, is now characterized by a range of structural realignments, new relationships between purchasers and providers and new coalitions between management and politics. In this article, we will argue that the school effectiveness movement is an example of new managerialism in education. It is part of an ideological and technological process to industrialize educational productivity. That is to say, the emphasis on standards and standardization is evocative of production regimes drawn from industry. There is a belief that education, like other public services can be managed to ensure optimal outputs and zero defects in the educational product.

O ágio e a Lei 12.793: a independência entre as partes e o valor justo dos ativos

Esta monografia analisa três das principais alterações ao instituto do ágio trazidas pela Lei nº 12.973, de 2014. Estudou-se neste trabalho, especialmente: (i) a alteração na contabilização do ágio; (ii) a obrigatoriedade de elaboração de laudo de avaliação para validade do ágio por perspectiva de rentabilidade futura; e (iii) a necessidade de “não dependência” entre as partes envolvidas na operação. Para elaboração deste estudo foi realizada uma resumida análise histórica do instituto do ágio no Brasil, atentando para os conceitos, critérios e requisitos para o surgimento deste instituto no plano do direito tributário e das ciências contábeis. Concluiu-se que as modificações na contabilização do ágio implementadas pela Lei nº 12.973, de 2014, tendem a diminuir o valor do ágio gerado nas operações de fusões e aquisições e de reorganização societária, reduzindo os incentivos tributários para realização destas operações. Além disso, no tocante à elaboração de laudo de avaliação concluiu-se que a medida garante aos contribuintes maior segurança jurídica, apesar de tornar a operação mais custosa. Por fim, em relação à obrigatoriedade de “não dependência” entre as partes envolvidas na operação, entendeu-se que esta regra extingue a ágio decorrente de operações entre sociedades pertencentes ao mesmo grupo econômico ou entre partes relacionadas. Diante da importância das alterações trazidas com a Lei nº 12.973, de 2014, recomenda-se que a doutrina e a jurisprudência aprofundem os estudos sobre o tema.

Lean Six sigma aplicado a uma empresa do setor de embalagens

With the advent of a global economy, Lean Six Sigma meets the demand of new production process that creates products within the customer’s specification without any wastage. The objectives of this work is to use the concepts Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma parallel to minimize costs, increase the customer base, reduce the delivery time which implies an increase in the turnover of products on the shelves in a packaging company. We used the DMAIC method to continue working. The method DMAIC indicated the main failure modes that were fixed in the step improve. At this stage the tools of Lean Manufacturing gain tremendous value by optimizing processes with defects. The conclusion involves an increase in monthly billing, a corporate restructuring and, finally, a renewal in how to conduct the work of management