Frank Schneider

Frank Schneider coheads Cornerstone Research’s valuation, M&A, and bankruptcy practice. He also serves on the firm’s capital funding committee. Dr. Schneider has nearly two decades of consulting experience on financial and economic issues involving valuation and M&A, securities, financial institutions, asset management, credit rating agencies, and white-collar litigation. Dr. Schneider regularly consults on matters in which clients face major financial or reputational exposure.

Dr. Schneider assesses loss causation, damages, and valuation issues across a range of industries and financial instruments. Many of the matters on which he works involve risk analysis; modeling, including valuation; and analyses of big data.

Dr. Schneider has experience in all phases of litigation, including mediation, deposition, class certification, arbitration, and trial. He leads large teams, often supporting multiple experts. His consulting experience includes regulatory and internal investigations. Dr. Schneider has coauthored publications on valuation and M&A in the Delaware Court of Chancery, including on appraisal matters and M&A-related settlements.

Valuation, M&A, and bankruptcy

As cohead of Cornerstone Research’s valuation, M&A, and bankruptcy practice, Dr. Schneider has led the firm’s work on numerous matters in various venues, including the Delaware Court of Chancery. Representative cases include:

• Successful trial outcomes in In Re Oracle Derivative Litigation and Hyde Park v. FairXchange LLC, among others
• Supporting the preparation of expert testimony and consulting with counsel to successfully close the Twitter/Musk and Omni/Forward transactions
• Performing valuation analyses in connection with fairness opinions for M&A transactions, including in appraisal litigation in a going private transaction in Delaware
• Supporting experts in addressing valuation issues arising from the purchase of a minority stake
• Supporting a valuation expert in a successful arbitration where the panel awarded damages to our client
• Performing valuation of a major financial institution involved in a merger during the credit crisis
• Estimating lost profits from alleged breach of contract
• Assessing the impact of a new drug’s entry into an existing market

Securities

Dr. Schneider has analyzed loss causation, class certification, liability, and damages in numerous Rule 10b-5, Section 11 and Section 16, and ERISA cases alleging accounting misstatements, fraudulent earnings guidance, and other misconduct across a wide range of industries. His work includes:

• Leading the consulting and expert teams in In Re: Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. Securities Litigation, a matter in the Southern District of New York, in which the court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in its entirety, after previously denying class certification
• Supporting three experts in Shupe et al. v. Rocket Companies Inc. et al., in which class certification was denied
• Supporting four experts in the first insider trading claim litigated in the Delaware Court of Chancery, in which the Chancellor found for the defendant
• Evaluating whether securities traded in an efficient market, using event studies to measure stock price reaction to news releases
• Examining characteristics of securities traded on multiple exchanges
• Assessing loss causation and damages in 401(k) company “stock drop” litigations
• Analyzing stock price response to earnings surprises
• Researching the value of corporate control and voting rights

Financial institutions

Dr. Schneider has addressed issues involving banks, insurance companies, and mortgage originators. In particular, he has analyzed the connections among economic trends, changes in the regulatory environment, and company performance. His experience includes:

• Addressing market microstructure, competition, class certification, and damages issues in various matters, notably those alleging manipulation of interest rate benchmark-setting, as well as a municipal derivatives antitrust investigation, and foreign exchange (FX) antitrust claims
• Assessing quality of execution of FX transactions
• Analyzing off-balance-sheet conduits, such as structured investment vehicles (SIVs) and the impact of liquidity on their portfolio securities, including collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS)
• Evaluating class certification issues in cases involving institutional investors
• Addressing allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that a bank made inadequate disclosures and thereby misled investors about certain risks
• Assessing an independent sales organization’s claims against a merchant bank in the credit card space

Asset management

Dr. Schneider has extensive mutual fund, hedge fund, and private equity (PE) fund expertise. His representative work includes:

• Investigating investment strategies, including portfolio risk, performance, fees, consistency with disclosed investment guidelines, and shareholder investment and redemption behavior
• Evaluating issues related to asset allocation, portfolio securities pricing accuracy, fair value of certain securities, fund liquidity procedures, and internal controls
• Conducting detailed analysis of large-scale position-level data, including data on equities, futures, swaps, bonds, PIPE (private investment in public equity) financing, and other securities
• Analyzing riskiness of municipal bond funds
• Assisting counsel in a regulatory investigation pertaining to losses incurred by a hedge fund
• Developing analyses to rebut alleged damages claims against a service provider for a failed hedge fund
• Investigating hedge fund customs and practices for separation agreements, including noncompete provisions
• Evaluating investment strategies, the structure of PE funds, and compensation
• Calculating value of a company in a dispute over the transaction price in a leveraged buyout

Credit rating agencies

In a range of matters, Dr. Schneider has analyzed the role of credit ratings in financial markets, including:

• Assessing rating agencies’ general methodologies to determine the creditworthiness of corporations or financial instruments
• Analyzing reasonableness of credit rating models, their inputs, and implementation

White-collar litigation

Dr. Schneider has assessed damages in several cases involving alleged Ponzi schemes and has evaluated materiality and damages in insider trading cases and SEC actions. His work includes:

• Supporting an expert to rebut the SEC’s allegations of insider trading
• Assessing putative damages in a case involving an international Ponzi scheme

Before joining Cornerstone Research, Dr. Schneider worked at Protego Asesores Financieros (now part of Evercore) as a senior investment banking analyst, focusing on PE transactions, M&A transactions, and valuation matters.