Finance

Valuing Tech Acquisition Deals: Signal of a New Trend or a Recurring Tech Bubble?

Tech start-ups are proliferating around the world. They introduce technology to every aspect of our lives, from the way we communicate, to the way we care about our health, to the way we store our data. As a result, almost one third of the recent NYSE and NASDAQ IPO filings involved a tech-related corporation. However, when it comes to evaluating their potential, there is plenty of extravagancy involved, and some may say, accidentally turns young start-up founders into millionaires. 

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[Upcoming Event] Systemic Risk and the Financial Crisis: Protecting the Financial System as a “System”

The Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy will be hosting a lunch presentation by Professor Steven Schwarcz of Duke University School of Law on Tuesday, February 25, 2014.  The event will be held at Boalt Hall 100, 12:45 – 1:45 pm. Registration is requested.

How should the law help to control systemic risk—the risk that the failure of financial markets or firms harms the real economy by increasing the cost of capital or decreasing its availability?

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[Upcoming Event] Financial Regulation in the Post-Reform Era: Putting Dodd-Frank in Context

The Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy will be hosting a lunch presentation by Eugene Ludwig on Monday, February 24, 2014.  Registration is requested.

Eugene Ludwig, Promontory Financial Group
Monday, February 24, 2014 
Boalt Hall 100; 12:45 – 1:45 pm

From the Civil War to the savings & loan meltdown, U.S. financial regulation has been shaped by cycles  of crisis and reform. What do changes like the Dodd-Frank Act mean for the evolution of the American regulatory model, and for global priorities like financial inclusion and development?

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Hedge Funds Place More Bets on Startups

As of the past two years, tech startups became increasingly more attractive in the eyes of some very wealth suitors—hedge funds. 

A recent example of this attraction is Snapchat, the popular photo-messaging startup. After refusing a $3 billion dollar buyout offer from Facebook, Snapchat received $50 million in Series C funding from Coatue Management, a hedge fund.

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The Federal Reserve Approves Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan’s Capital Management Plans

In early December, two Wall Street giants, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, finally satisfied the Federal Reserve’s stiffer requirement with improved capital plans. The banks successfully put the matter behind them by resubmitting capital plans after the regulators found “significant weaknesses” in the ones submitted in March during a stress test. “We are pleased that the Fed determined” the bank’s stress test “process improvements met their expectations,” JPMorgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon said in a statement.

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