Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 61 - May 2020): Business Finance

This volume presents the current thinking on finance and strategy inside China. It begins with research presented at the China Financial Markets Conference in 2016, jointly organized by the University of Malaya and the Sun Tzu Art of War Institute. It includes a talk by Check Teck Foo on Currency-at-War: A Longer View, as well as a highly innovative piece by Kishan on the New Chinese Paradigm in Finance, and Tianyue Lu and Wee-Yeap Lau's empirical work on China's Shadow Banking. Ignatius Roni Setyawan and Buddi Wibowo also offer compelling contributions on Determinants of Market Integration in ASEAN. Other topics include The intriguing poser: integrating China into ASEAN, will determinants be the same? and Real Estate and Inflation in China by Siew Peng Lee and Mansor Isa. The book also features contributions from the 7th Global Chinese Management Conference held in 2017. Of the several papers on Sun Tzu, Seow Wah Sheh's on Modeling of the Dao of Sun Tzu for Business was chosen along with Shi Yong Song's Legal Risks inside China and Sustainability Reporting by Xin Sheng Duan and Check-Teck Foo. Furthermore, contributions on Company Secretaries on Chinese Board of Directors by Guang You Liu and Xiao Hui Wang are included. Lastly, it presents Check-Teck Foo's interview with Singaporean Chinese forecaster, Jason Tan Beng Siang, discussing Chinese approaches to forecasting as well as his invention, San Bian Shu. 

In a business climate marked by escalating global competition and industry disruption, successful mergers and acquisitions are increasingly vital to the growth and profitability of many corporations. If history is any guide, 60 to 70 per cent of new mergers will fail - and will destroy shareholder value. To date, analyses of the M&A failure rate tend to focus on individual causes - e.g., culture clashes, valuation methods, or CEO overconfidence - rather than examining the problem holistically. The Value Killers is the first book based on a holistic analysis of successful and unsuccessful transactions. Based on research, interviews with top executives, and case studies, this book identifies the key causes of failures and successes and offers prescriptions to increase the odds that future transactions will deliver all the anticipated synergies.  The Value Killers offers practical advice in the form of 5 Golden Rules. These rules will help managers and boards to ensure that target companies are properly valued; potential synergies and risks are identified in advance; checks and balances are installed to make sure that the pros and cons of the transaction are rationally and objectively evaluated; mechanisms are created that will trigger termination of bad deals; and obstacles to successful post-merger integrations are assessed (and solutions developed) before the deal closes. Each chapter includes questions for executives considering future M&As to allow them to see whether they are on the right track or not. 

This book highlights research-based case studies in order to analyze the wealth created in the world's largest mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This book encourages cross fertilization in theory building and applied research by examining the links between M&A and wealth creation. Each chapter covers a specific case and offers a focused clinical examination of the entire lifecycle of M&A for each mega deal, exploring all aspects of the process. The success of M&A are analyzed through two main research approaches: event studies and financial performance analyses. The event studies examine the abnormal returns to the shareholders in the period surrounding the merger announcement. The financial performance studies examine the reported financial results of acquirers before and after the acquisition to see whether financial performance has improved after merger. The relation between method of payment, premium paid and stock returns are examined. The chapters also discuss synergies of the deal-cost and revenue synergies.  Mergers and acquisitions represent a major force in modern financial and economic environment. Whether in times of boom or bust, M&As have emerged as a compelling strategy for growth. The biggest companies of modern day have all taken form through a series of restructuring activities like multiple mergers. Acquisitions continue to remain as the quickest route companies take to operate in new markets and to add new capabilities and resources. The cases covered in this book highlights high profile M&As and focuses on the wealth creation for shareholders of acquirer and target firms as a financial assessment of the merger's success. The book should be useful for finance professionals, corporate planners, strategists, and managers.