We study how access to private equity financing affects real firm activities using a broad panel of publicly traded U.S. firms that raise external equity through private placements (PIPEs) between 1995 and 2008. The public firms relying on PIPEs are generally small, high-tech firms that cannot...

We review recent evidence and future directions for empirical research on financial contracting in the context of corporate finance. Specifically, we survey evidence pertaining to incentive conflicts, control rights, collateral, renegotiation, and interactions between financial contracts and...

As a step towards understanding whether a private equity governance structure reduces overall agency conflicts relative to a public equity governance structure (as is often argued), this paper describes the contracts between private equity funds and investors, and the returns earned by...

This paper addresses the questions whether European mutual fund managers rely on sell-side analyst information and whether this behavior impacts fund performance. Results show that mutual funds significantly increase (decrease) their holdings in stocks when any of the consensus forecast measures...

We study whether Chinese CEOs with financial experience engage in more earnings management or less earnings management than those without such experience. In doing so, we distinguish between accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management. Overall, we find that CEOs with financial...

Canadian firms have different roots (e.g., more concentrated ownership and smaller size) than U.S. firms and Canadian regulatory enforcement follows a different route (principle- versus rule-based) that embodies the underlying intent of Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX). Financial restatements are more...

This study evaluates whether and how relationships influence acquirers’ choice of financial advisors in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Specifically, it examines how acquirers’ relationships with their advisors, including their optimism of analyst recommendations and the outcome of their...

The structure of a firm-commitment Seasoned Equity Offering (SEO) resembles a put-option underwritten by an investment bank syndicate (Smith, 1977). Employing implied volatilities from issuers’ stock options as a direct forward-looking measure, this paper examines the impact of expected price...

We survey 79 private equity investors with combined AUM of over $750B about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on IRR and multiples to evaluate investments. Their LPs focus more on absolute performance. Capital structure...