This paper investigates whether private equity (PE)-backed acquirers have a “parenting advantage” in the mergers & acquisitions (M&A) market. We employ a sample of 788 PE-backed firms and a carefully matched control group of 6,652 non-PE backed peers, for which we observe the entire...

Stylized facts suggest that strategic acquirers can pay for synergies, while private equity (PE) firms cannot because of the missing operating fit with the portfolio company. However, if PE firms initiate buy-and-build strategies, there is potential for an operating fit between the portfolio...

This paper investigates inorganic growth strategies in PE buyouts where the portfolio firm, which has been acquired in the initial buyout, serves as a platform for subsequent add-on acquisitions. We analyze a comprehensive sample of 9,548 buyouts and 4,937 add-on acquisitions spanning 16 years...

We study the impact of PE firm and buyout characteristics on default probability employing a Cox proportional hazards model to a global sample of 5,093 buyouts between 1997 and 2012. Our results indicate that investments of generalists have lower default probability than those of specialists....

Using a dataset of 1,149 global private equity transactions, we find that cross-border buyouts are associated with significantly higher valuation multiples than domestic ones. We attribute this finding to informational disadvantages of foreign acquirers. Consistent with this idea, we find that...

This paper explores how diversity among lead partner teams (LPTs) of private equity (PE) funds affects buyout performance. We argue that there is a trade-off between the ‘bright side’ of diversity (i.e. improved decision-making due to a broader set of perspectives) and the ‘dark side’...

This paper investigates whether buy-and-build strategies (B&B) can explain cross-sectional variation in holding periods. I model the B&B effect in a survival-analysis framework and present results from several treatment-effect estimators. I find that B&B strategies increase holding periods by up...