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Coles College of Business 2022-2023 Projects

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    • Being listed on public markets (i.e., stock exchanges) is one of the key aspirations of small businesses. However, in the past 30 years, there are numerous restaurant firms that have taken the opposite route by going private (i.e., being delisted from stock exchanges). One of the key reasons why companies would choose to become private is to exercise greater control over their own equity, enjoy a sense of autonomy and relative ease when it comes to internal control, auditing and financial reporting. Some other companies believe that they no longer need financing through capital markets and choose to pursue private equity. When restaurant firms announce their intent to go private, it is typical for the stock return on the day of the announcement to go up. A key question that needs to be answered is why some restaurant firms can realize higher shareholder gains (i.e., an increase in stock returns) when they decide to go private. Thus, the purpose of this project would be to answer the following research questions:

      • What is the average return for all “going-private” transactions between 2002-2021?
      • What are some of the factors that lead to “above average” stock returns when firms decide to go private?
      • Do smaller restaurant firms enjoy higher shareholder gains when going private?
      • Do firms with lower levels of debt realize higher shareholder gains?

      To answer these research questions, data for approximately 50 going-private announcements will be analyzed and coded qualitatively and quantitively. Some same data items are as follows: family business, firm age, number of brands, number of U.S. States, number of countries, number of units/locations. Next, statistical analyses will be conducted to answer research questions and results will be written up.

      • First-year scholars will develop some knowledge of the restaurant industry and the restaurant chains/companies.
      • First-year scholars will learn how to collect secondary firm-level (company) data from company documents and input it into Microsoft Excel to build a dataset.
      • First-year scholars will be exposed data analysis and obtaining statistical output(s).
      • First-year scholars will learn how to prepare tables by including results from the statistical outputs.
      • First-year scholars will learn how to report these results in a research paper.
      • First-year scholars can present their papers at Spring 2023 Symposium of Student Scholars.
      • The scholars can write a research paper that may be published in undergraduate research journals such as Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research or other regional or national-level publications.

    • There will be bi-weekly online meetings with the student where tasks and the overall progress of the project will be discussed. The student's weekly tasks may vary depending on the stage of the project. The breakdown of overall duties is follows.

      While the tasks can vary from week to week, the overall duties can be summarized as follows:

      • Review company documents and manually enter company data in a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel.
      • The student will be also trained how to conduct basic statistical analysis in Excel. He/she will help with preparing tables and figures that will be used in presenting the research paper at academic conferences and/or submitted to academic journals.
      • The first-year scholar will learn how to use a reference manager software such as Zotero where he/she will build a bibliography of relevant studies. In addition, the scholar will be inserting the citations into the research paper.
    • Online
    • Dr. Melih Madanoglu, mmadano1@kennesaw.edu  

 

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