CHAPTER 7The Risk Arbitrage Decision Process
Now that we've explored how the arbitrageur estimates the possible returns and risks, and the probability of any particular transaction's occurring, we will use these estimates to form a decision framework for the arbitrage investment process.
In Chapter 6, we saw that the arbitrageur had estimates of return and risk on four separate deals (see Exhibits 6.1 and 6.2). The probabilities of those deals, expressed as percentages, are shown in Exhibits 7.1 and 7.2.
| Deal | Return ($) | Risk ($) | Probability (%) |
| ABC | 1.000 | 4.000 | 85 |
| DEF | 1.500 | 7.000 | 90 |
| GHI | 0.750 | 2.950 | 80 |
| JKL | 2.650 | 12.500 | 70 |
EXHIBIT 7.1 Risk Arbitrage: Returns, Risks, and Probability (in dollars)
| Deal | Return (%) | Risk (%) | Probability (%) |
| ABC | 6 | 24 | 85 |
| DEF | 7 | 32 | 90 |
| GHI | 9 | 35 | 80 |
| JKL | 11 | 51 | 70 |
EXHIBIT 7.2 Risk Arbitrage: Returns, Risks, and Probability (in percentages)
We can now use the three estimates in each deal to calculate the risk‐adjusted expected return on each transaction, as follows:
| where RAR | = | risk‐adjusted return |
| P1 | = | probability of deal closing |
| EP | = | expected profit (net spread) |
| P2 | = | probability of deal's breaking up = 1 − P1 |
| EL | = | expected loss (total risk) |
| I | = | total investment |
| P | = | estimated investment period |
All the returns we have used in the previous calculations are unleveraged returns. ...
Get Risk Arbitrage, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
