FEATURES

By AMY BIEMILLER

2012 Small Business Breakfast Series

March 14 – Taking Advantage of Today’s Favorable Tax Environment – Strategies to Enhance Business Profitability and Financial Security; Paul Salerno, Director of Financial Planning at Tax & Financial Group

May 9 – Building Your First Sales Team

To learn more about the Small Business Breakfast Series, go to http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/alumni/councils/oc/

Small businesses have big appetites for learning how to better manage the business of business. Now, the Graziadio Alumni Network (GAN) in Orange County is meeting that need for local small business owners, managers and nascent entrepreneurs – and provide a breakfast to boot – in a regular Small Business Breakfast Series on the Irvine campus.

“We recognized that a good portion of our constituents are either employed with, or have started a small to medium-sized business,” says MBA student Kris Carter, the Orange County alumni network’s director of small business outreach. “This observation, combined with increased awareness of this segment by the University, led us to initiate the program.”

Less a networking meeting and more a think-tank session over coffee, the Breakfast Series is open to anyone willing to pay the $15 fee and make the bright-and-early 7:30 a.m. start time. Attendees help themselves to breakfast goodies, then settle in for a presentation by a business leader or subject matter expert who delivers focused insight into specific areas that are important to business owners.

“Our speakers are subject matter experts who provide current, relevant information on topics that face a small business or entrepreneur,” explains Carter. “The greatest value is that attendees get access to individuals who have ‘been there, done that’ and can share what they learned through the process.” continue

FEATURES

By AMY BIEMILLER


If accounting is the language of business, Charles J. McPeak is an expert linguist. With 30 years of applied experience in the accounting field, McPeak has bridged industry to academia, bringing relevancy to the classroom for his MBA students of finance.

McPeak received his first taste of teaching more than two decades ago, when he taught a few courses at El Camino Community College while he was still a controller at Mattel.

“I fell in love with teaching. I told the dean that I wanted to teach full time and he told me ‘Wait until you are financially secure then drop out of industry and look for a teaching job.’” explains McPeak.

He followed that advice and started with Pepperdine as an adjunct professor in 1991. Since then, he has become a mainstay in the Graziadio School of Business and Management. His research interests center on the fields of earnings management, expensing stock options and the relationship of sustainability and financial performance. continue

RECENT HEADLINE

Dr. John K. Paglia, lead research for the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project and an associate professor of finance at the Graziadio School of Business and Management, was awarded the third annual Middle Market Thought Leader Award. The recognition honors “individuals who have made a meaningful contribution to middle market M&A” and was given by the Alliance of Merger & Acquisition Advisors (R) (AM&AA), the leading association and credentialing body for middle market M&A professionals in partnership with Grant Thornton LLP, one of the six global audit, tax and advisory organizations.

Paglia tied for the award with investment banker Robert Slee, author of the text Private Capital Markets, who collaborate with the Pepperdine professor in 2007 on a model to map the movements of both lenders and businesses that comprise the ever-changing private capital market system.

This became the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project, the first simultaneous, comprehensive, and on-going investigation of the major private capital market segments. The research has resulted in 11 reports since its inception in 2009. Most recently, collaborating in part on surveys with Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp., Paglia issued a 2012 U.S. Economic Forecast, State of Small Business Report, Capital Markets Report and California State of Small Business Supplement. continue

RESEARCH

Insights from Small and Mid-Sized Private Businesses

For the second year, the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project and Graziadio School of Business and Management asked private business owners for their projections on how well the U.S. economy will perform. With over 99% of companies being privately-held, the American economy is dependent upon the success of these businesses. Lead researcher and associate professor of finance Dr. John Paglia queried business owners on such topics as confidence in their business growth prospects, hiring, job creation, impediments to U.S. gross domestic product, and government economic policies and their impact on business health in 2012.

The PDF report is now available. continue

PRESS RELEASES

Pepperdine Private Capital Market Project Research Conducted in Partnership with Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. Release Findings from Survey of 3,118 Private Businesses

LOS ANGELES–Only 33% of privately-held businesses owners support raising the debt ceiling this year, while 45% say the government should never raise the limit, according to survey results released in the 2012 Economic Forecast conducted by Pepperdine University’s Private Capital Markets Project and Graziadio School of Business and Management in partnership with Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. The report comes as the nation’s legislators grapple with the President’s request to increase the debt ceiling by an additional $1.2 trillion and today’s vote in the House.

Download forecast: http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/2012economicforecast

In the survey conducted over the first two weeks of the New Year, 23% of the 3,118 small and medium privately-held businesses that responded support a debt limit increase in the first half of 2012 and 10% support an increase in the second half of 2012. Looking further in the future, 9% of respondents favored 2013, 4% indicated 2014, only 2% 2015 and 7% favored 2016 as the earliest they could support an increase to the debt ceiling. continue