Earnout agreements link part of the payment for an acquired company to its future performance. Despite their option-like features, they cannot be valued using vanilla option-pricing methods. Two peculiar sources of risk affect these contracts: Bidder default before the earnout expiration (default risk) and potential litigation associated with earnouts (litigation risk). We developed an option-pricing model that encompasses these sources of risk, showing that counterparty and litigation risk can have a remarkable impact on earnout values. Our model's relevance is further enhanced by recent accounting standards that require contingent payments to be valued at fair value.

中文翻译：

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收益：并购中分歧的真正价值

盈利协议将被收购公司的部分付款与其未来业绩联系起来。尽管它们具有类似期权的特征，但不能使用普通的期权定价方法对其进行估值。影响这些合同的两个特殊风险来源：投标人在收益到期前违约（违约风险）和与收益相关的潜在诉讼（诉讼风险）。我们开发了一个包含这些风险来源的期权定价模型，表明交易对手和诉讼风险可以对盈利值产生显着影响。最近的会计准则要求或有付款以公允价值进行估值，进一步增强了我们模型的相关性。