Liquidation Triggers and the Valuation of Equity and Debt

Net-worth covenants, as introduced by Black and Cox (1976), provide the firm’s bondholders with the right to force reorganization or liquidation if the value of the firm falls below a certain threshold. In the event of default, however, many bankruptcy codes stipulate an automatic stay of assets that prevent bondholders from triggering liquidation and thus impact many positive net-worth covenants. To consider this impact on a corporation’s capital structure we develop a general model of liquidation driven by a liquidation trigger. This trigger accumulates with time and severity of distress. In addition, current distress periods may have greater weight than old ones. The tractability of the approach stems from its ability to allow parameters appropriate for different legal rules and types of bondholder safety covenants. The proposed model includes several well-known models, like Merton, Black- Cox and others. We show how to valuate various types of corporate securities by using this model. Numerical results and sensitivity analysis are presented for selected basic cases.