Art Of Dissolving Boundaries English Literature Essay

Art Of Dissolving Boundaries English Literature Essay The art of dissolving boundaries is what living is all about. 1 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, an Indian immigrant woman writer anticipates through her writing to dissolve boundaries among people of different backgrounds, communities, ages and even different world. She spent 19 years of her life in India and learned all the costumes and traditions of her own, thus, she knows her motherland very well. But her migration from one country to another made her comprehend about the feeling of dislocation and homelessness. She felt the adjustments to get shifted from one place, which is your own homeland or roots. Before she became a writer, Chitra Divakaruni was only a simple young woman in a novel country, far away from her own country. She was excited at the prospect studying in America, but forlorn missing her family in Kolkata and the traditions of her culture. For her, it has been such a great attempt just to make it to the U.S. because her very traditional family didnt understand why she would want to leave her home. Ultimately, she was able to convince her family to let her go. In 1976 when she came to the U.S., she went through some incidents and realized the gap between the East and the West. Once while walking down on a Chicago street with some relatives she was horrified when a few white teenagers shouted nigger and hurled sludge at her. This incident deeply shamed that she didnt want to discuss even. But somehow it stayed in her mind and acted as the spur kick her to start writing and then one evening, her five-year-old son Abhay came back from school and tried hard to wash off t he dirt color of his skin. Through these episodes she realized that still there is the sense of other and this made her interest to start writing about her own experience of immigration, which are the same for the many other immigrant women. She identified that people still behave them as alien. Divakaruni said in one of her interviews that, It was a big adjustment, moving from a big city like Calcutta to Dayton, Ohio, which, at that time, didnt have many Indians and was not cosmopolitan; I felt a real sense of being other. People were so startled to see an Indian person in Indian Clothesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. I think all people come to a new country with preconceived notions, so there was an adjustment on both sides. 2 It arouses several views to think about once own identity and roots. The question Where are you from? put her in a shock that people even didnt know about them. It would be really a challenge to get settled in a country where all their lives or their appearance would proclaim them Foreigners. Moving to the United States really made me renegotiate my boundaries and in some ways, even reinvent myself as a woman, says Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 3. For her, writing is the only way to fight for her self-identity. Before her migration she never thought to be a writer, but later on she felt that whatever feeling she had that was also the same for many-many other immigrant women and she wanted to share it with her readers. That understanding taught Divakaruni that she had stories to tell- stories that could get people together and disclose the common humanity in everyone. The totally new experiences or environment turned her into a writer. She spotted a light on it by saying, In some ways, I think that immigration made me into a writer, because it gave me a subject to write about. When I lived in India, I was so immersed in the culture that I didnt really think about it. But when I moved halfway across the world, I began to think a lot about what it meant for me to be Indian, and also how immigration changes us. 4 Thats why all the way through her skills she wants to write about the life of immigrant women and their problems of dislocation or cultural clash. By showing her own culture the author would like to remove the gap between the two different communities. She believes that situations, conditions, circumstances or destiny are the same everywhere only the implication and reactions are different. The main theme of Divakarunis work is immigrant conflict and acquired values vs. adopted one. There are so many challenges if someone is writing about two distinct worlds. She says, Its okay to be an Indian person who loves Indian culture but now Im an American citizen and committed to making life in this country better. We need to remain secure in our own identity but participate fully in the culture, politics and daily life of America. The important part of integration is that you dont give up, you share. For me as a writer, a major challenge is to keep my finger on the pulse of both worlds. That means talking to people on both continents, observing them, learning what is changing with them and what remains the same. This also means that Im writing for audiences that are very different. This is difficult, especially as I refuse to explicate culture. 5 Divakaruni has studied both Eastern and Western literature. She likes to bring the two together in her writing. She feels this is the only way to enrich both traditions. She recognized that different readers will take different things from her works. She really likes that her books have different kinds of readers or observers. She would want South Asian or South Asian American audience, who will read the books and think about the issues in their communities and lives. She hopes that her readers will see that though we come from different places, what we have in common is humanity. She conveys her great desire that people may eventually come together and make a better world. This chapter will provide an introduction to Divakarunis essential theme. She writes to unite people by dissolving boundaries among them. She is a bridge-builder between these two different cultures, one is her own motherland India and another is where she is living United States. May be both these communities are different in their traditions, customs and lifestyle but feeling, emotions and sensibility are the same. Yet, over the course of 15 books, her motivation remained clear her books are a bridge of words, an attempt to take a reader to understand both themselves and those they might have labeled other 6. So, being an award-winning poet and author, Divakaruni senses a lot about her early days in America. As a creative writing professor at the University of Houston, she makes an effort to use her knowledge to help out worldwide students to feel comfortable in their new environment. Thus, such understanding of her life directed her to write, first poetry, and then fiction. The author also writes about family, domestic violence, emotional abuse, cultural alienation, and human trafficking. Thus, we can analyze how Chitra Benerjee Divakaruni promotes healthy family relationships. She recognizes the positive aspects of traditional culture or values and its places in family and community. Like her fiction her life walks in a careful line between the two worlds. Six months ago, she shifted to Houston with her husband and two sons from the Bay Area to Texas, where she teaches at the University of Houston. Like the characters in her books, she sometimes finds herself struggling to keep in equilibrium the demands of family and career, tradition and modernity. According to her the solution is to combine the best parts of both but she also knows that it is not always easy. Its really a juggling act. Some days, its clear what the best aspects are, some days its not, Divakaruni said with a warm chuckle 7. The author talked about the boundaries between the two East and West plus the two different cultures and the differences among the psychology of the human being. She wants to get rid of the gap between her adopted land and motherland. She has experienced both of these worlds very well and realized that each has its own positive and negative aspects. India has valuable traditions, enrich culture or ethics and on the other side the U.S.A. has modernity, freedom plus lots of exposure in every field. Her writing relates to her homeland and culture of origin; it shows the powerful relations to the culture of the native soil. She tried to give knowledge to her readers about her origin or identity as well as the experience of her new home, thus, she wants to be an Indian-American. Divakaruni shared her views in one of her articles Indian Born in the U.S.A. that, In my dark kitchen I bow my head to pray for strength for India, facing, on her 50th anniversary of freedom, the severe challenges of poverty and illiteracy and communal violence. And for us all, children of the Indian Diaspora, here on the other side of the world, who have our own challenges. I pray that we may be able to preserve the values weve gained from our past: love of family, of traditions, of spirituality and the simple life. That we may combine them with what weve learned in our new home: energy and enterprise and how to fight for our rights. This, perhaps, is the best legacy we can leave our children: The art of being Indian American. 8 Aug 21, 1997. Hence, the act of migration implies a bodily shifting out of the familiar place and relocation in the new and unfamiliar land. It was due to the colonial impact and its after effect which created uprooted and dislocation of identity. Edward Saids Orientalism (1978) enlarged the range of the post colonial approach by revealing the Eurocentric Universalism which establishes Western superiority over the East, recognized as the other. In other World (1987) by Gayatri Spivak, Nation and Narration (1990) by Homi Bhaba, The Empire Writes Back (1989) by Bill Ashcroft, Culture and Imperialism (1993) by Edward W. Said and such other works accelerated the study of colonialism and its effect on other cultures. They all are stuffs of Western education and living outside from their native environment. They can imagine a pre-colonial at best; mythological motherland in Africa or Asia to articulate or end up expressing a cross identity. Therefore, the native speaker of English language shifted to th e foreign land and tried to create their self-identity, culture, and individuality in an alien atmosphere. All those hardships and obstacles which they have faced provide them a new mindset. All these experiences are well dealt in Diaspora literature. This concept of Diaspora often focused on a forced displacement along with centered on negative experiences in terms of unfriendliness, disaffection, loss, and persecution. Even as their ancestral deficiency is an overpoweringly negative concept, the idea of the Jewish Diaspora describes a community whos socioeconomic, cultural, ancestral and political networks across boundaries of states, and protect a common shared identity. Although transformed by the influence of nearby cultures; for many the dream of return to the homeland provided a fundamental principle of identity. Thus, Central to the concept of Diaspora is the image of a journey; however, not all journeys can be understood as the Diaspora. Diasporic journeys are not the same as casual travel; they are about setting down and putting roots elsewhere (Brah, 1996) crossing geographical and mental borders. These discussions of the Diaspora are inevitably bound up with the notion of borders and territories the arbitrary lines of social, cultural and psychic demarcation. 9 The migration experience does not finish with the point of settlement or agreement; it is handed down through the age groups, consciously or unconsciously making its role to the way in which those Diasporas bargain their existence through societies in which they and their culture is in the minority. Being in Diaspora means living in a cross-cultural circumstance, one in which fusion, change, and expansion are predictable. Those alerts of the complexities of this recognize the notice to redefine their identity and the requirement to discover a medium through which to articulate their progress. In their process of defining and redefining their individuality and the struggle this involves, South Asian women in Britain have had to tackle the combined issues of gender and society. Most of all, Diaspora is understood as transcontinental the socio-cultural collection reminiscence of diasporic people is a community having its ties to a homeland, which establishes the false appearance of an ideal past. Emigrants inhabit their communal imagined homeland, which has its location in another place and time. A longing and affection for the discarded homeland is the driving force, which hypotheses an image of the lost country. Divakarunis depiction of her inherited home has, is committed to region in part, her otherwise lost Indian personality. Her accounts are derived from a memory blurred by the distance of time and space. A settler or immigrant are distanced by space and time, as they no longer reside in their country of ancestry and the inhabitance of language and culture of the birthplace is removed from their daily lives. To synthetically recreate the milieu of the lost motherland is flowed due to wistful and false memories, which are created in part to endure a sense of identity and maintain a link to the disconnected motherland. Currently there are almost 20,000,000 people of South Asian origin living outside of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, with the majority in Africa, the U.S., the Caribbean, and Oceania 10. Although there are regional differences in their adaptations in many ways, still tried to display a common Indian identity. They may want their children to flourish in their adopted countries, but at the same time they may wish them to accept Indian family values, share their common culture, and get married to other Indians. In other words, many Diasporas living over as tend to reproduce their Indian culture, language, values, and religion as much as possible. People are getting migrated to other countries because of so many reasons; it could be education, business, residential, and so on. Many writers have also migrated to the West and have been producing a large mass of literature in English which is a powerful organ to voice their emigrant sensibility and migrant experience in the West. The inactive social or cultural hostilities, feeling of isolation from their roots and thereafter a steady search for attaching and assimilating these ancestries in the Western surroundings constitute the center themes in their works. Themes of homelessness, migration, loss of identity, exile, culture clash, cultural assimilation, and rootlessness are often discerned in their works with remarkable similarities. The dilemma of these immigrant writers in a multi-cultural circumstance often get combined with their personal suffering due to bias or a sense of rootlessnesss, if they are rejected by their host countries. Indian Americans writers have made their presence felt in American culture, society, business, and even politics. These writers are writing about common people, identity, a feeling of uprooted, immigrant experience, East-West relations, and life in the United States or the Indian Diaspora. Indian American writing broke new earth from the 1970s and so on. With the relation of immigration laws, Indians migrated to the United States in large number. One consequence of this has been a propagation of women writers. They got the right exposure may be because of the modernity and free atmosphere of the foreign countries. In large American cities, one can easily find their books. Their readership has widened, with many women who are reading novels and short stories in order to learn about their own communities. Indian American women authors wrote about the experiences of immigrant life, which became the reading materials for thousands of immigrants. As it is evidence in the works of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. She has studied both Eastern and Western literature, thus, she likes to bring the two together in her writing; she feels it is a way to enrich both these traditions. Divakarunis books, which are set in both Indian and American, A feature Indian born woman torn between Old and New world values. She gives laser-like sight and skilled use of story, plot, and lyrical description to give readers a many layered look at her characters and their respective worlds, which are filled with fear, hope, and discovery. 11 Most of her work is partially autobiographical and based on the lives of Indian immigrants which she has dealt with. She writes to help people and unite them by breaking down old stereotypes. Divakaruni skillfully expresses the experience or familiarity of South Asians in America. She says that her books are somewhat based on practice plus social observation. But Divakaruni endeavors to interlace such observation with the factor of magic, myth, and ancient culture alongside contemporary culture. She tries to bring a sense of the daily realities of immigrant life and ancient culture together. But she also insists that she doesnt write for a specific spectator in mind. She explains in a soft, gentle tone of voice that, I like to stay close to the story, think about the story, stay close to the characters. I find it distracts me if I begin to think of audience while Im writing 12. Therefore, it shows that she is still attached to her own motherland while adopting another one very well. She only explains her adjustments and conflicts during her journey to the U.S. from India. Divakaruni accepts that both sides have the same problems and circumstances only the way of looking towards those situations are little different. Somehow she realized the frontiers between these two worlds and strived to remove them. Chitra Banerjee has an empathetically personal and boldly imaginative style of storytelling that draws readers into the lives of people across cultures, particularly the lives of Indian and Indian American women. Thus, she has an unusual ability to breakdown different kinds of boundaries, e.g. those between the East/West, prose/poetry, magic/realism, past/present, and native/immigrant. She was able to do all such through the dramatic style and social content of her work. If we look through the geographical point of view there are boundaries or gaps between the East and the West countries, but its all about our psychology only. If we glance it positively and treat all of them as a human being, then there is no boundary as such. No doubt that there is a difference between the culture, lifestyle, atmosphere, customs, and dressing sense; but it doesnt mean that their sensibility is also different. The author tried to show it in the course of her characters that they are able to adopt the new rules of a new country after a lot of adjustments. Divakaruni wants to explain whether they got shift to another country but they have never sensed any boundary between their motherland and foreign-land. They are still attached towards their own roots and homeland. While they have adopted the lifestyle along with the customs of their new home but by some way they still feel the attraction towards their own tradition. Thus, she makes it clear that shifting to another culture or land doesnt mean to leave something; its all about to adopt another home. By her writing Divakaruni illustrates that how difficult it is to remove the border line between East/West and maintain the gap between these two different cultures. Divakaruni brings together wide critical applaud with the publication of her first collection of short stories Arranged Marriage (1995), which pays attention on women who came from India and caught between two worlds. That book also went on to American Book Award in 1996. Many characters in Arranged Marriage deals with this rapid transform in worldview, at once exciting and also horrifying. They have to build a sense of the new condition, which begins to convert them as women. Even it begins to transform their relations with the people in their family like their parents, who are usually back in India and their husbands, who are with them in the novel country. There are kids also who are now born in the new milieu, still wedged between two cultures, so far with an entirely different worldview. Well this is also an awfully chief theme in her another story collection The Lives of Strangers (2001), with movements back and forth between the two worlds. Divakarunis more than 15 books address the stories about to the understanding of women or immigrants in a new nation. Though she said her books are not autobiographical, but many of her characters contribute to similar apprehensions. She is concerned with how we make a new home for ourselves in a place that is so far away and so unlike from our home culture. The author also said that, she is concerned about how we as immigrants change the places in which we find ourselves. She is very much interested in the ways womens roles have changed as we move into different cultures. Eventually, Divakaruni expects that her words will challenge readers to think about what it means to be an immigrant and about larger issues such as family and home. She further says that, What I hope people get out of my books is that it will encourage them to think about important issues. I also hope that they see that although we come from many different places, what we have in common is the humanity we want the same things, we desire the same things. I hope my books will dissolve boundaries and bring people together. 13 Therefore, in her writing Divakaruni keeps on to be stimulated by her students at the University of Houston, many of them are immigrants themselves. In her time at UH, Divakaruni has been pleased to see the increasing variety among faculties, particularly at the highest level with President Renu Khator, who is also from India. Divakaruni talks about the strength of Renu that, Her having come from a different background and really having overcome many difficulties in her own personal background makes her an inspiring role model. She can also understand the struggles of some of our students who maybe come from different backgrounds where they havent been given the kind of support they need for college success. 14 Through her writing Chitra Banerjee wants to share all her experiences and also wish to unite the East/West by telling the stories of different characters. In her novel Sister of my heart (1999), Divakaruni presented two different characters Anju and Sudha, who were born at the same time. They both grew up together in the guardianship of their mothers in India. After marriage Anju went to America with her husband and on the other side Sudha lives in India with her in-laws. Author figured out Anju as a young woman in a new country, far away from home as well as from the sister of her heart Sudha. Anju tries to adjust in a new atmosphere with the past memories of her family and culture. There was no family support for her and she had to do everything by her own. She says while living alone in her new apartment, I dont like walking into the empty apartment. Theres something about the air unpeopled and stagnant, as though its from the bottom of a well that dried up a long time ago that makes me uncomfortable. Thats when the longing for the house of my childhood shakes me the most. How irritated I used to be at the constant commotion milkmen, vegetable sellers, Ramur Ma shouting at the neighbors cat whod snuck into the kitchen, Pishi calling me to go for my bath. Now Id be glad to see even the teatime aunties!15 Thus, through both of these protagonists the author wants to show two different lives in different cultures. Anjus life is entirely different from Sudhas. There is a gap between both of them, but this is physically only not mentally. Distance didnt change anything much between the relationships of these two sisters, after all they are sisters of the heart. They used to keep their connection through phone calls or letters as well as share each and every experience or growth of their life in different surroundings. By showing the life of these two sisters the writers aim is to remove the gap between the East and the West. She also gave us an idea about the contrast between the two different cultures Western culture splendidly as well as Indian. Anju presents her positive attitude and advantage of American customs. She says, Unlike some of the other Indian husbands I know, Sunil has always encouraged me to feel comfortable in America. He taught me to drive and introduced me to his colleagues at work. He bought me jeans and hiking boots, and when I said, Go for it! Hes taken me to malls and plays and dance clubs and the ocean. And finally though money is short, he has been enthusiastic about my going to college to get a degree in literature. 16 By showing the contrast, Divakaruni gave a picture of her motherland plus her current home (America). Thus in her book Sister of my Heart, she discussed the relationship between the older generation of India, who lives in a world full of mystical tales and magical occurrences plus Anju and Sudhas generation which is more drawn to western ideals. She believes that her readers must know about each others culture. If we put a glance on her other works like Mistress of Spices (1997), Queen of Dreams (2004), and Vine of Desire (2002); we will feel the same sensibility among the protagonists. They all are trying to get adjust and make their life better in the new and free atmosphere of the United States, keeping their past in their heart or memories. In her novel The Vine of Desire, the same story runs between the two sisters. Anju was living in America with her husband and now Sudha also joined them with her little daughter Dayita. Now Sudha is also trying to enjoy the new place and learn new things. Sudha turns on the T.V. Anju has told her she must, it will help her to understand Americans. So she watches a weather report that states theres a 70 percent chance of rain; a commercial for paper towels that features a giant male, a dirty floor, and a tiny, agitated woman; and then return of a game show. 17 They all are living far away from India and somehow they have adopted the new culture but still India is alive in their memories as their motherland. Thus, by heart they never go far away from it. Sudha is pretending to be happy, so once Anju asked her disappointedly, Do you miss India? 18. The whole setting of this novel is in America, but we also get a glimpse of India through the inner feelings of the characters. We can know about the different lifestyle of America, their way of thinking, rules, choices, and culture. Sudha also understands that, All the rules are different in America, and she knows none of them yet 19. The author made an effort to explain us about the reason that why people are getting attract towards the foreign culture; its all because of their free rules and open mentality. Thats the technique of the writer to break down the barrier among different continents. She not even presented the combination of east/west but also blends past and present together in her novels very well. It is to be sure that the element of secrecy or mystery is an integral part of Divakarunis work. She skillfully conveys her experiences of South Asian in America. She said that her books are partially based on the experience of social observation. But the author strives to weave such observations with the element of magic, myth, and ancient culture beside contemporary culture. She tries to bring those belongings together- the daily realities of immigrant life and a sense of ancient culture. She does so in her novel Queen of the Dreams that combines the story of a dream-teller mother and her young Indian-American daughter with the event of September 11, 2001. In her novel Queen of Dream, Rakhis mother is a dream teller, born with the ability to interpret and share the dreams of others. Her work is to foresee and direct them through their fates. This gift of vision fascinates Rakhi but she is totally separated from her mothers past in India and the dream world which she inhabits. She puts an effort for something to bring them closer. Rakhi was totally caught beneath the burden of her own painful secret; her comfort comes in the discovery after her mothers death through her dream journals, which began to open the long closed door to her past. Thus, the whole story wonderfully deals with the concept of past and present. It gives us the sense of a new America as well as the sense of traditional India. Via this novel we also get a glance of dream world and real world, there is a fine combination of both of them. Thus, This story of an emotionally distant mother and a daughter trying to find herself transcends cultural boundaries. Queen of Dreams combines the elements that Divakaruni is known for, the Indian American experience and magical realism, in a fresh mix. The tale succeeds on two levels. She effectively takes the reader into an immigrant culture but she also shows the common ground that lies in a world that some would find foreign. The search for identity and a sense of emotional completion is not confined to small corners of the world. It is a dilemma that all readers can understand. (Denver Post) 20 Divakarunis another novel The Mistress of Spicesis unique in its style. It is written with a combination of prose and poetry, thus this book has a very mystical quality to it. She wrote this novel in a spirit of play to collapse the divisions between the timeless one of myth or magic and the realistic world of twentieth century America. Its her attempt to create a modern fable. The novel follows Tilo, a magical figure who owns a grocery store and uses spices to help the customers and overcomes their difficulties. She also develops dilemmas of her own when she falls in love with a non-Indian. This creates great conflicts, as she has to choose whether to serve her people or to follow the path leading to her own happiness. Tilo has to decide which part of her heritage she will keep and which parts she will choose to abandon. The writer has well succeeded in her aim to remove gap between east/west, magic/realism and past/present in her novels which are discussed as above. In her article Dissolving Boundaries, she shared her experience which made her a new turn towards the theme of dissolving boundaries. She shared her feelings in it, It was Memorial Day. I waved good-bye to my two year old son and his grandma as my husband pulled our car out of the driveway, tires squealing. Ill be back in a few days, I called out to my son, with a brand new baby brother for you. As our car speed onto the freeway, I tried to reassure my nervous husband, telling him the pains werent too bad, and that everyone said the second time around was much easier. I had no premonitions at all. I didnt know that a normal delivery would not be possible for me. That the ensuing Caesarean surgery would go wrong in every way. That I would end up having to remain in the hospital for over a month, unable to take care of my newborn. I didnt know that I would balance precariously for weeks on the frail and perilous boundary between living and dying.21 That was really a tough time for her. She went through no dark tunnel, saw no bright lights. She did not rise out her body even. That encounter with death affected her deeply, though not in ways one might expect. She got the sense of life and death. But that time she felt a strange, dizzy sense of emptiness, of peace, in the way Buddhists use the term. She felt as though she drifted between states of death and life, and that it didnt matter which side she landed on. Because the boundary which we humans had drawn between these two states was not as irrevocable, nor as important, as we believed. She committed, I mused a lot about boundaries as I lay in bed recovering over the next few months, learning to live again. And it seemed t

Law Schools :: essays research papers

The Beginning of Law Schools and The Study of Law   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Up to the middle of the last century, the more popular method of legal instruction in America was the training of young law students in the office of a judge or practicing attorney. Even today a large number of lawyers in the United States receive their training somewhat in the same manner. In order to be admitted into the practice of law, one must pass a bar examination. This exam is conducted by a court or board acting under judicial direction. The knowledge needed to study for and pass the exam can be found wherever the candidate thinks they can find it. The oldest law school in America was of Judge Reeve in Litchfield, Connecticut, established in 1784. For several decades’ law students received their training through lectures and instruction by Judge Reeve and his assistants, whom were practicing lawyers. This oldest American law school was a private institution. After some time there was a rise in competitors, and law courses were introduced in connection with existing colleges. Among the new schools was Harvard College, whose first professorship of law dates from 1816, but the school did not attain its position of great and rapidly increasing significance for the development of legal instruction till 1830 (Gillers 20). In the beginning, the older American law schools were referred to as lecture schools. The “Blackstone’s Commentaries';, which were used for instruction earlier, formed the sole basis of work for these lecture schools. Through the lecture method a new style of teaching came about. It was called the text-book method. The main concept of this method was for the students to study and memorize the literature in the books and recite it to the instructor. In this method most of the students class time was occupied by mechanical testing of their knowledge and quizzing them during special hours (23). The two methods of instruction-lecture method and text-book method- were always present in newer schools and very effective. Even today in the United States these methods are used with a lot of improvements and added detail. During the early 1870’s a man by the name of Christopher Columbus Langdell created a new method of instruction for English law. Langdell was a New York city lawyer, he was appointed dean of Harvard law school in 1875. Langdell wanted to revise the curriculum of the school.

Jimmi black dog

In the novel, The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith conflict is an ever present factor and although much of this conflict is negative, Generally has incorporated positive outcomes to some of this conflict in this story. This fictional recount of true events show us the social, interpersonal, inner and racial conflict between and within the whites and the indigenous people of Australia In the 19005. When Jimmie Blacksmith marries a white woman, the backlash from both Jimmies community and the white society he inhabits, sets of a chain of tragic, violent events. As Jimmie tries to make his way In a world that deplores him.These forms of conflict present us with some positive outcomes which will be explaining today. Jell blacksmith was a half caste aboriginal who had a lot of white culture brought up In him, this contrast of black and white culture had made Jell think hard over the years of what he really wanted In his life. This life that Jell had been living since he was only a teenager gave him absorptions of wanting to be white. Not only did his upbringing make him want to be white but the way his people were treated made him want to be more than just a stupid black fell.From the beginning social and racial conflict is present ND is present throughout the whole book, despite this conflict being negative at the time there are positive outcomes from it. In relation to this novel social and racial conflict is present in Remember the titans, a movie about a group of teenagers who want to join the school football team, but do not wish to play with people of the opposite color. These boys overcome their race issues and unite as a team, not worried about the color of each player.Racial conflict is the basis of this movie and as in Jimmie blacksmith racial conflict is the most common form of conflict in the novel. Hill Jimmie is an aboriginal and he can't change that he still tries to. Jimmies first positive outcome of racial conflict is when he realizes he doesn't want to s it around and become an alcoholic like the rest of his people. So Jimmie tries to find honest work in hopes of becoming more white. This self awareness that Jimmie acquires shows him that his people are drunks and that he will soon follow this path if he sits around following what everyone around him does.In the movie remember the titans, the head coach who is black is having trouble living in his own house just for being black. He is hated upon from the white community because they feel has come in and taken over and has no right to do so, but the black community feel as if they have won a battle of the war between races. When Jimmie leaves his black community and tries to get Jobs all around, he Is rejected by Just about everyone just because he is black, but when one man hires him he Is Impressed with his work and comes to realize that he In actual fact Is a good worker.This Is a triumph for Jimmie therefore being a positive outcome of racial and social conflict, this makes Jell want to push further to reach his â€Å"white† aspirations. Much Like In the movie member the titans the coach Is sinned upon when he Is seen through the town but when he begins leading the football team to countless victories, the towns people begin to love him and they begin to realize his color does not affect his coaching In any way.When Jimmie Is Is hung In the end of the novel this shows a positive outcome because no more killing can be conjured at the hands of Jimmie blacksmith, outcome for the white people knowing that there has been Justice. These example I have given show some of the main positive outcomes of conflict in the book, although there are some more these are the ones I feel showed this the best.

Are Mergers And Acquisitions Justifiable For Growth Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 16 Words: 4910 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Introduction Investment Banking has received a lot of attention and negative publicity as of late and is deemed responsible for the recent recession that followed the credit crisis in 2007. Nevertheless the advisory side of the business has been largely irrelevant to causing the crisis. Mergers Acquisitions ( MA) advice is vital in the world of corporate finance and creates an efficient market for corporate mergers. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Are Mergers And Acquisitions Justifiable For Growth Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The fees charged by advisory practices for the services are sometimes seen as outrageously high and unjustified. Like any other salesmen, investment bankers charge a commission based on the price of the product. Due to the vast sums companies are worth, fees generated are large as well. Whilst the economic value of mergers and acquisitions has been analysed in great depth, advisory fees, and their effect on premiums paid by acquirors for the target firm, has been largely neglected by literature. This study aims to analyse whether the fees are justified by analysing whether more expensive advisors add value for the shareholders or not. We will research how advisors are chosen, and how fees are determined. Then we will continue to analyse how advisors, and the fees they charged impact the premium paid. This paper will focus on the transactions with any German involvement. This will proof valuable as Germany has not been covered in depth and will provide new insights. This study i s highly relevant to economic theory and will focus primarily on the principal agent problem. Concepts Literature The number of mergers and acquisitions taking place in the corporate world increased dramatically over the last two decades. Alongside this trend market analysts and academic researchers have been working to identify key factors affecting merger outcomes, and what differentiates a successful acquisition from a failed one. The role of investment banks and the relationship between client and advisor has been of particular interest. How this relationship affects merger outcomes, such as time to completion and premium paid has been subject to thorough investigation. Whilst it is generally agreed that investment banks provide valuable services in making the market for corporate mergers and acquisitions more efficient(Mortensen 1982, Diamond and Maskin 1979), the apparently excessive fees charged by advisors have come under criticism in recent years. It is unclear whether advisors add sufficient value to justify their high fees. This literature review aims to examine some of the previous papers investigating this topic. Merger fees for the purpose of this paper will be defined as fees paid to investment bank advisor. This paper will ignore other fees incurred during the transaction such as legal, consulting, or auditing fees and solely focus on the fees received by the investment bank responsible for facilitating the transaction. It is important to distinguish between target and acquirer fees. With regards to price paid for the target, the acquisition process is a zero sum game. The acquirer would like to pay as little as possible, whilst the target would like to achieve a price as a high as possible in order to maximize value for its shareholders. The targets gain is the acquirers loss and vice versa. Thus fees paid by both parties will have to be looked at separately, in order to determine if higher fees generate value for the shareholders of the respective parties. There are principally two ways in which investment banks create value for their client and t he clients shareholders, the first is through creating an efficient market for transactions and suggesting suitable acquirers/targets for their clients. The second, and the one this paper will focus on, is through negotiating the best possible price for their client. Bowers and Miller find significant evidence that more prestigious and thus more highly paid banks generate higher returns for their clients through selecting suitable targets/acquirers. Other papers generally support these findings (Grossman and Hart 1980, Servaes and Zenner 1986). Whilst there is a vast amount of literature investigating the excess returns generated by bankers through suggesting suitable acquirers/targets for their client, there is very little done in terms of premium paid/received and choice of advisor. The most relevant paper for the purpose of this discussion is Chahine, Ismail (2005). This is because it is one of the very few papers that distinguish between fees paid by acquirer and by target. I t focuses on the level of premium paid for the target, and the investment banks effort. Fees and advisor reputation are used as proxies for advisor effort. The paper focuses on investment bank effort, rather than fees as previous research has found that advisor choice is mainly driven by reputation(Walter, Yawson and Yeung, 2008)(and not necessarily by fee level, although reputable advisors will generally also charge higher fees)(Srinivasan 2001). Within this framework, Chahine and Ismail propose three Hypothesis; The choice of target investment bank reputation is positively related to the choice of the acquirer investment bank The fees paid to advisors is positively related to reputation, and the target advisor fee also depends on the perceived quality of the acquirers advisor The higher the acquirer advisor fee/reputation the lower the premium. The higher the target advisor fee/reputation the higher the premium. This suggests a sequential decision making framework. The acquirer chooses its investment bank first. Then the target chooses its bank, which will depend on how reputable (and thus expensive) the acquirers bank is. The more prestigious the acquirers advisers, the more of an incentive for the target to hire a reputable advisor. The main issue with trying to model the effect of advisor choice on fee is the vast number of variables driving premium and distinguishing between correlation and causation. Cash-rich acquirers maybe willing to hire highly expensive advisors and pay a very high premium because they have sufficient cash available, this would mean the effect of expensive acquirer advisors on premium may well be underestimated by a regression. Likewise troubled target firms, likely can only afford cheaper advisory firms, and will likely receive lower premiums as they are not performing optimally. This will likely overstate the effect of advisory quality on the target side. Another well researched issue, is the deal completion hypothesis. It states that investment banks may induce their clients to pay a premium that ensures deal success, rather than optimizes value. This implies target advisors would negotiate a lower premium to ensure deal success, and acquirer advisors would negotiate higher premium. (Chahine Ismail 2005). This creates a conflict of interest between acquirer and investment bank, as the latter may only be motivated by fee. Fee however mainly depends on deal success, thus the advisors may focus more on getting the deal done than on maximizing value for clients. This is negated to a certain extent tough since future business for an advisor is mostly dependent on its reputation (McLoughlin 1990), and thus advisors have an incentive to act in the best interests of their clients to ensure a good reputation and future deal flow. Methodology The method used by Chahine and Ismail(2005) will serve as base but will need to be altered significantly. See below the three equations used in their paper, these equations will serve as a base for our own regressions. a) Acquirer Advisor Reputation = f(deal value, acquirer size, , deal attitude, geographic scope, method of payment, industry scope) b) Target Advisor Reputation = f(acquirer advisor reputation, deal value, acquirer size, deal attitude, geographic scope, method of payment, industry scope) a) Target Fee = (Acquirer Reputation, Target Reputation, deal value, deal attitude, geographic scope, method of payment, industry scope.) b) Acquirer Fee =(Acquirer Reputation, deal value, deal attitude, geographic scope, method of payment, industry scope.) 3. Premium = f (acquirer fee, target fee, acquirer-IB reputation, target-IB reputation, deal value, acquirer size, deal attitude, geographic scope, method of payment, industry scope) These equations will attempt to model the sequential decision framework. At first the acquirer decides it would like to buy a company, and then chooses its advisor. This choice will depend on the various factors listed above, we would expect it to be mainly driven by acquirer size. Because we define reputation in terms of league table placement, the advisors at the top of the league table must advise on many large transactions to reach this league table position. Hence they are likely the ones with most experience, and best connections to large clients. Hence these large clients are much more likely to hire a reputable bank. After the acquirer chooses its advisor, they together find a suitable target. When they approach their target, the target will hire its own advisor, dependent upon similar factors to the acquirer. However the target knows which advisor the acquirer picked and hence will likely try to pick an equally reputable one. Fees are determined simultaneously to the hiring of the advisor and are likely contractually laid out when the advisor is hired. The above variables are intended to gauge complexity of the deal which would require higher fees. The fees of the respective side will also dependent on the reputation of the advisor, with more reputable advisors charging higher fees. We would expect the reputation of the acquirer to affect the target fee levels, as this reputation is known to the target advisor when the contract is set up. Lastly then premium is determined by various factors as laid out above, the effect of the relevant advisor and fee variables have been discussed in the theories above. The key issue in this equation is RHS endogeneity and lack of sufficient exogenous instruments. The reputation of the acquirers advisor is endogenous as more complex, larger deals generally require a more reputable acquirer. However all of those factors may influence the premium as well. There is a lack of exogenous variables to use as instrument for this. We may attem pt to use acquirer size as instrument, since in our own regression we found this to be least correlated to the premium. Whilst some previous literature(Rau, 2000) finds that larger acquirers may pay larger premiums, it is as of now the best instrument available. Target advisor reputation faces similar issues, they are compounded by the fact however that it also depends on the acquirers advisor reputation as we have laid out in the sequential decision making framework that the targets advisor choice is dependent on the acquirer. There are unfortunately no exogenous instruments available. Overall Chahine and Ismail serve as a template but their 2SLS methodology is flawed. They estimate reputation and fee separately, then use those estimates in a 2SLS regression to determine premium in the equation laid out above. However this is unnecessary as 2SLS does this itself already, hence their standard errors and significance levels are likely wrong. This paper will attempt to correct t his flaw. Overall estimation will nevertheless be difficult due to severe RHS endogeneity, multicollinearity and lack of exogenous instruments. Data Data Source: Transactions ThomsonOne Banker Database Company reports Fees Freeman algorithm estimates We primarily used ThomsonOne Banker database to gather all relevant transactions details. Only acquisitions larger than $1m and only non financial institutions (as valuation is vastly different from other industries) will be used. There are several issues that need to be addressed in data collection. For one there is heavy survivorship bias as only transactions that happened are recorded in the database and all failed negotiations are not accounted for. Further there is significant attrition as of an original 10,000 recorded transactions only 130 meet all sufficient criteria, thus we are only dealing with a very limited subsample of the entire transaction space. Key Statistics: Avg. Deal Size Avg. Acquirer Size % Cross Industry % Crossborder $4.1bn $22.7bn 56 75 % Reputable Target Advisor % Reputable Acquiror Advisor % Target fee of total % Acquirer fee of total 56.5 69.2 0.88 0.88 Avg Premium Min Premium Max Premium # of Transactions 33.1% -2.6% 130.5% 114 Our premiumspread is wide, and this sample has been truncated significantly to exclude any distressed situations (high negative premium), and outliers at the top end. All deals are control changing. Average transaction and acquirer size are large($4.1bn, $22.7bn) this is expected as we only included publicly listed companies, which tend to be large, hence both acquirers and targets will be large. Both acquirer and target fees(as % of total deal value) are similar. Most deals are cross industry or cross border. Most transactions are advised by reputable advisors, suggesting the market for these large cap transactions is split between few firms. We defined advisor reputation by taking the league tables 5 years prior to deal announcement. The top 10 firms in those league tables are declared reputable(assigned a 1 in the dummy), the rest is assigned a zero. Target advisors tend to be less reputable than acquirer advisors. There are minor inconsistencies in share price data. We tried to use 4week previous share prices in determining the premium level, however for some transactions(5) there are only one week or one day prior data available that was used. We manually looked at their share price and found the available one week/one day data to be in line with the 4 week prior data. Further exchange rate fluctuations may alter valuations and sizes, as all data on Thomson one is in USD. Thomson one does not supply acquirer size data. It was put together using company financial reports were available. Revenue was used, rather than equity value, to allow for easier comparison between public and private companies, and to avoid having to make difficult valuation judgements. Where data at year of purchase was not available it was estimated using prior years. No original fee data is available, Thomson One relies on freeman algorithm estimates. This maybe an issue if the algorithm is flawed. The algorithm is generally accepted in industry, and there is no origi nal data available for German transactions, hence we are forced to rely on these estimates. Empirical Results probit acqadvrep lnacqsize border xindustry, vce(robust) acqadvrep Coef. Std. Err. Z Pz lnacqsize .304 .0683 4.45 0.000 border -.568 .348 -1.63 0.103 xindustry .0316 .269 0.12 0.906 _cons -1.642 .588 -2.79 0.005 Marginal effects: variable dy/dx Std. Err. z Pz lnacqs~e .102 .0223 4.55 0.000 border* -.172 .0916 -1.88 0.061 xindus~y* .0106 .0905 0.12 0.907 We use a probit model to analyse determinants of acquirer advisor reputation. This is sensible as acquirer advisor reputation is binary. We found this specification to be adequate using various tests. We find only the natural log of the acquirer size and cross border to be significant. As expected the key determinant of the acquirer advisor reputation is the acquirers size, as discussed before the top of the league table advisors are at the top because they advise on a lot of large transactions, and hence have a strong reputation amongst large acquiring firms. The negative coefficient on border is counterintuitive as we would expect cross border transactions to be more complex and thus warrant more reputable advisors. One possible explanation is that cross border deals involve countries with significant differences in league table placement of advisors, and thus this leads to a strong negative bias on the border coefficient. probit tgtadvrep acqadvrep lndealsize, vce(robust) Tgtadvrep Coef. Std. Err. Z Pz Acqadvrep .708 .311 2.28 0.023 Lndealsize .520 .116 4.50 0.000 Border -.119 .315 -0.38 0.705 Xindustry -.029 .283 -0.10 0.918 _cons -3.45 .750 -4.61 0.000 Marginal effects: variable dy/dx Std. Err. z Pz acqadv~p* .275 .118 2.33 0.020 lndeal~e .200 .042 4.73 0.000 border* -.046 .119 -0.38 0.703 xindus~y* -.011 .109 -0.10 0.918 Moving onto hypothesis 1 b), the target advisor reputation, we find a significant positive impact of acquirer advisor reputation on target advisor reputation. The natural log of deal size is also positive and significant. This confirms our above hypothesis of a sequential decision making framework. The log of deal size is highly important for the same reasons as above, top league table advisors will have most large transaction experience. What is interesting to see with both target and acquirer reputation is that deal/acquirer size appears to be the main drivers, and the variables measuring complexity of transaction (cross industry, cross border) do not have a significant effect (except for border for acquirer reputation, a counter intuitive and likely biased effect). ivregress 2sls tgtfee lndealsize border xindustry (acqadvrep = lnacqsize) tgtfee Coef. Std. Err. z Pz acqadvrep -.166 .335 -0.50 0.621 lndealsize -.231 .035 -6.54 0.000 border -.076 .103 -0.74 0.460 xindustry -.152 .084 -1.80 0.072 tgtadvrep .250 .131 1.91 0.057 _cons 2.471 .198 12.49 0.000 We use a 2sls to account for the endogeneity of acquirer advisor reputation. Unfortunately we cannot account for the endogeneity of target advisor reputation as we lack exogenous instruments. We see that the reputation of the acquirer advisor is insignificant, the log of size of the deal is highly significant and negative, the reputation of the target advisor is positive and significant. As tgtfee here is defined as fee paid to target advisor as a %, it is expected for this % to decrease as the size of the deal rises. This is because on very large deals advisors tend to charge lower fees as % of total deal, as the fees in absolute terms are still more than sufficient to compensate the advisor. We find that more reputable advisors charge higher fees as %, this was also to be expected. Contrary to our hypothesis, the reputation of the acquirer advisor has no effect on the target advisor fees. This may be due to the endogeneity issues with targ et advisor reputation. ivregress 2sls acqfee lndealsize border xindustry (acqadvrep = lnacqsize) acqfee Coef. Std. Err. z acqadvrep .483 .254 1.90 lndealsize -.296 .0314 -9.40 border -.099 .0795 -1.25 xindustry -.103 .0640 -1.61 _cons 2.571 .139 18.49 Similar regression as above, we find only acquirer advisor reputation, deal size, and cross industry to be significant. Coefficient on acqadvrep is positive and significant as expected, more reputable advisors charge higher fees. Fees decrease as a % in dealsize, which was also to be expected. The coefficient on cross industry is interesting, as it is counter intuitive. One would expect advisors to charge higher fees on cross industry transactions, as they are more complex. One explanation maybe that cross industries deals are primarily undertaken by financial buyers, who are less willing to pay high fees. Alternatively strategic buyers gain less synergies in cross industrie deals and thus maybe less inclined to pay high fees. reg lnpremium border xindustry acqfee acqadvrep tgtadvrep ownedaftertransaction tgtfee pharma TMT natres, vce(robust) lnpremium Coef. Std. Err. t Pt border .031 .214 0.15 0.884 xindustry .114 .167 0.68 0.496 acqfee .059 .211 0.28 0.782 acqadvrep -.285 .207 -1.37 0.172 tgtadvrep .143 .231 0.62 0.539 ownedafter~n .024 .008 3.17 0.002 tgtfee -.457 .272 -1.68 0.096 pharma .555 .193 2.88 0.005 TMT .664 .280 2.37 0.020 natres .974 .535 1.82 0.072 _cons 1.151 .679 1.70 0.093 We use an OLS model as there is too much endogeneity to account for, hence we chose to ignore it, and discuss limitations of our results later on. We also find various specification issues which we could not address, including omitted variables. These are likely due to the endogeneity issues. See appendix for relevant tests. We find the % of shares owned after the transaction highly significant, and positive. This is to be expected as buyers have to pay a significant control premium. Whilst our sample only includes transactions in which there was a change in control (shares owned before must be less than 50%, shares owned after transaction must be more than 50%), there is an additional premium for owning larger stakes in firms, especially for owning up to 100%. This is because minority shareholders still hold significant rights and need to be compensated highly to sell their shares and forfeit those rights. This is well documented in the exis ting literature ( Dyck and Zales, 2004). The primary argument is that large blocks of shares grant its owners private benefits, not available to diluted shareholders. These mainly arise through improved control over management, amongst other factors. The positive coefficients on pharma, natural resources(natres) and TMT is in line with theory. Those three industries traditionally command higher premiums than the remaining industries. In the case of TMT this is primarily driven by technology companies which historically achieve very high premia due to high future upside. The same applies to pharmaceutical companies. This is mainly because most pharmaceutical transactions involve larger companies acquiring smaller firms with a promising pipeline. Large firms are able to pay high premiums over market value because the pipeline, when realized, can lead to huge profits for them as they possess a vast distribution network, which the small firm lacks. Relevant to our core theory we u nfortunately only find target fee to be relevant, and to have a negative effect. This is not necessarily counter intuitive, as it is in line with the deal completion hypothesis. Because league tables are driven by closed deals, those on top of the tables(and thus those charging higher fees), got to the top through closing a lot of transactions. A transaction is more likely to close the lower a premium the target advisor demands. Also fees are only paid in case of deal closure, so advisors have a short term incentive to close a deal to reap fees, although in the long run this may damage reputation(however only if reputation is not primarily determined by league tables, as league tables are driven by closing deals). An issue we face is potential Endogeneity. Our theoretical framework established a highly endogenous relationship between all independent variables (i.e. tgtfee depends on acquirer reputation and target reputation which all drive premium). We found some relationship bet ween acquirer advisor reputation, target advisor reputation and the fees charged by them. Our issue is we cannot address it in a 2SLS framework as we lack exogenous instruments. This means our OLS estimates maybe biased and inconsistent, making interpretation questionable. In the Ramsey reset test we also find there to be omitted variables, however even upon inclusion of all available variables in various combinations we have found no adequate specification, which again is likely caused by the endogeneity. Limitations, Extensions Conclusion The validity of this study and any study trying to find the impact of advisor fees/reputation on shareholder value is questionable. There are too many reasons as to why such investigations are riddled with flaws, we will briefly try to touch on the few key points. The first issue is the problem of deciding what a fair price is, and what the correct premium should be. Determining premium levels involves valuation. Valuation is an inherently subjective matter. Thousands of finance professionals and academics obsess over this daily, analysis are often as quantitative as they are qualitative. Valuation is not an exact science and there is always significant room for debate. This will lead to random variations in premiums paid amongst similar companies. This is because the market for companies is highly illiquid and thus accurate pricing is not achieved. Even if there was a generally agreed upon formula to value businesses, unobserved heterogeneity would still be a major issue. Th ere are an infinite number of qualitative factors affecting the valuation of any one business. Whilst it is possible to include the most obvious ones (i.e. severe expected litigation charges, recent damage to the brand, distressed situation), to conduct in-depth valuation of each transaction this is beyond the scope of this paper(investment banking professionals may spent 40 hours or more on each firm valuation) and as discussed above would not necessarily yield great results. Even if we could take them all into account, the actual price paid for a corporation is still subject to massive variance because different buyers can afford different prices, which will lead to bias in the coefficients for advisor effect. This is an issue because of the illiquid nature of the market. We attempt to account for financial buyers paying lower prices(although find the coefficient to be insignificant), although even two strategic buyers may be able to pay vastly different premiums for similar bu sinesses. This leads to even more heterogeneity and random variation of premium. Moving onto our last issue, even if we had perfectly homogenous companies and a way to value them exactly, we still have one major enemy in our undertaking, the date of transaction. Timing of transactions influences valuations and premiums in a vast number of ways, many unobservable, we will attempt to briefly discuss the most common ones. Stock market valuation differ massively throughout time, and often do not reflect fundamentals. A premium of 100% maybe perfectly adequate for one pharmaceutical company if its price is depressed due to market irrationality, whilst a premium for the same pharmaceutical company of 10% maybe outrageously high even just one year later. Next to the stock market aspect we also face a credit aspect. Depending on availability of credit and interest rates financial buyers may be able to pay significantly higher premiums(as seen in 2007). Another issue is not only the overa ll cycle, but also the individual industry cycle affects premium. Lastly there are not only problems associated with the market pricing of firms, global macro conditions also affect the fundamentals of companies. When you add the interplay of these two factors you could realize that comparing a transaction today to a transaction five years ago is incorrect. We have tried adding a time variable to account for this, but found them to be insignificant. Extensions As you see from the limitations mentioned above, the key extension is to massively increase sample size. As we have exhausted all German transactions, further research may be done by adding more European countries to the transaction list. This would allow it to deal with the various issues of unobserved heterogeneity better. Although we would face the additional problem of differences between countries, we should however be able to account for those easily through use of appropriate dummy variables. With vast amounts of additional time and resources analysing every transaction in depth, attempting to model in all the qualitative factors could lead to better results as well. Conclusion: This paper examines the choice of advisor, the fees charged by advisors, and the determinants of premium in MA transactions. We proposed the same three hypothesis as Chahine Ismail (2005). The acquirer first chooses its advisor based on deal complexity, then the target plays a best response to the acquirers choice, and lastly the premium is a function of advisor reputation and some deal specific variables. We also followed the methodology of Chahine Ismail (2005), albeit we did not address the endogeneity in their 2SLS way, as we did not find any adequate exogenous instruments, did not discover as much endogeneity as they did, and as their methodology was flawed in this regard. We found evidence for the advisor choice framework we proposed. The acquirer first chooses its advisor, then approaches a target, and then the target chooses its advisor. We also found support for our hypothesis that more reputable advisors charge higher fees, although we were unable to find support for the hypothesis that more reputable acquirer advisors cause the target advisor to charge higher fees. Lastly we found support for the deal completion hypothesis, that is more expensive(and hence more reputable) target advisors lead to lower premiums. This is contrarian to our original hypothesis. The validity of the final regression is questionable due to endogeneity issues, unobserved heterogeneity and our limited sample size. Lastly if we were to further investigate we would mainly aim to get a much larger sample to address the unobserved heterogeneity issue, but we still lack exogenous variables to address the endogeneity. Bibliography: Bowers H, Miller R. Choice of Investment Banker and Shareholders Wealth of Firms Involved in Acquisitions.  Financial Management  [serial online]. Winter 1990;19(4):34-44. Carter, R. and Manaster, S., 1990. Initial public offerings and underwriter reputation. Journal of Finance 45, pp. 1045-1067 Chahine S, Ismail A. 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