Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name Xuwu Liu RIN 661010891 Time Line Brief Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name Xuwu Liu RIN 661010891 Time Line Detail Time November ID: 583126
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Slide1
-Risk Arbitrage on merger between BT and MCI
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide2
Time Line (Brief)
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide3
Time Line (Detail)
Time: November 1, 1996: Events: Information circulated about the possible merger between BT and MCI
.
Farallon
Capital Management’s Action
: Started collecting information and prepared themselves for a potential position
.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide4
Time Line (Detail)-Continued
Time: November 3,
1996
Event:
BT announced it had come to an agreement with MCI for an acquisition. And there were preliminary estimates that the merger would be completed within nine to twelve months
.
Farallon
Capital Management’s Action:
Reached some conclusions about the prospects for the merger:
Market Trend- a more integrated international market
Company Specific factors- BT knows well about MCI; great synergy effects potential
Regulation Barrier- little antitrust concerns; good chance of waiving the FCC’s ownership limit
Designed trading strategy:Came to the conclusion that the appropriate spread for the deal should be about 12% (difference between the price paid by BT and the market price of MCI)The current narrow spread is because the market hasn’t fully understand the effects of U.K.’s Advance Corporation TaxInitially take opposite of the usual merger arbitrage position by going long BT shares and selling short MCI shares.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide5
Time Line (Detail)-Continued
Time: November 4, 1996 to July 9, 1997Event: Spread widened; regulatory hurdles became less of a
concern
Farallon
Capital Management’s Action:
Reverse
its initial position by going long MCI shares and short BT shares, and continually add to its positions.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide6
Time Line (Detail)-Continued
Time: July 9, 1997 and after
Events:
MCI announced that the cost to enter local telephone market was substantially higher than expected, and its core long distance business will have a lower than expected earnings led by heightened competitive pressure. MCI guided future earnings expectation was down almost 50%.
It seemed BT was surprised by the MCI’s announcement and has the potential to renegotiate the contract or even terminate the merger.
Debate raged on Wall Street regarding the prospects of the MCI merger.
Both MCI and BT’s stock prices declined and
Farallon
Capital Management had lost money on the position
.
Farallon
Capital Management’s Action:
Was Being Discussed
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide7
How to execute Risk Arbitrage
Spot OpportunitiesSelect deals for further reviewDue diligence
Take trading positions
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide8
How to execute Risk Arbitrage
Spot OpportunitiesMonitor the market to see if there is any “rumor” about potential mergers and if there is any new announcement of mergers.
Select deals for further
review
Filter out “noises” and decide what are the deals that worth further investigation.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide9
How to execute Risk Arbitrage
Due diligence
Understanding
the potential
risks and returns
Valuations
Understanding the impacts
of the merger
on
the acquirer and the target
firm
B
ased on various sources of informationWall Street equity analystinvestors relations department of companies affected by a merger announcementLawyersother industry expertscompetitors
of the companymajor institutional
shareholders
investment bankers
political consultants
trade journals
newspaper reporters
other
arbitrage funds
.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide10
How to execute Risk Arbitrage
Take trading positionsTwo ways:
C
ash
purchase of the target firm’s stock if the merger is a cash
dealP
urchase
the target company’s stock and sell short the stock of the acquiring company if the merger is a stock-for-stock
deal
Gradually commit more capital as the picture of the merger getting more and more clear.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide11
M&A Arbitrage: Risk and Return
Risk: The merger doesn’t happen as expected, which cause the target’s stock price reverse to the level before the merger announcement(ignoring general market movement), and since the arbitrager is taking a long position in target’s stock, this will lead to a loss to the arbitrager
.
Return:
If the merger happens as expected, then the arbitrager will profit from the long side of the position, and the net profit is equal to the bid price from the acquirer for the target firm minus the arbitrager’s purchase price for the target firm’s stock.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide12
What to do with Farallon’s
position and with the hedge?
Current
Situations(July 1997):
Farallon
is not heavily
leveraged, which means
Farallon
can
take some losses and can
hold the position for a longer time
.
Lost money on the position, but because both the BT and MCI’s stock prices decline, it lose money on the long position but is gaining money on the short position, which means the situation is not too bad.Farallon had not had a down month since 1989, which means it is probably important to maintain this record because after a long time of good performances a negative return will look very unusual and may draw a lot of attention from the investors.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide13
What to do with Farallon’s
position and with the hedge?Implication from the decline of market price
:
Since the BT’s stock prices has declined, if we ignore the overall market movement, the decline of BT’s stock price means the market is still expecting
the merger
to happen.
At
the same time, the MCI’s stock price also declined, again if we ignore the overall market movement during the same period, the decline of MCI’s stock implied that the market believes the probability of the merger decreased, or the market believes the merger will be based on
an
renegotiated new contract.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide14
What to do with Farallon’s
position and with the hedge?Strategies and potential outcomes
:
If
the merger
fails, as long as Farallon
didn’t clear its positions, it will suffer a loss
.
If the contract renegotiated, as long as
Farallon
didn’t clear its positions, the event will bring uncertainty to its position. The reason is that the market already expects a certain level of renegotiation, so the impact of the actual renegotiated contract depends on whether the difference between the new and old contract is larger or smaller than it is expected
.
If the arrangement is proceed anyway, as long as Farallon didn’t clear its positions, it will profit from its positons.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891Slide15
What to do with Farallon’s
position and with the hedge?
Hold the position as it is
Gradually reduce the position
Clear the position
Merger Failed
BT: Up
MCI: Down
Impact on position: Negative
BT: Up
MCI: Down
Impact on position: Negative
BT: Up
MCI: Down
Impact on position: None
Contract Renegotiated
BT: Uncertain
MCI: Uncertain
Impact on position: Uncertain
BT: Uncertain
MCI: Uncertain
Impact on position: Uncertain
BT: Uncertain
MCI: Uncertain
Impact on position: None
Merger proceed as planned
BT: Down
MCI: Up
Impact on position: Positive
BT: Down
MCI: Up
Impact on position: Positive
BT: Down
MCI: Up
Impact on position: None
So the final decision is based on an assessment of the probabilities of different outcomes (failed, renegotiated, proceed), and based on the assessment of
Farallon’s
capacity (both financial and reputational) to withstand the potential losses.
Financial Trading and Investing Case Study Name: Xuwu Liu RIN: 661010891