Using a unique, hand-collected database of all venture- backed firms listed on Germany's Neuer Markt, we analyze the history of venture capital financing of these firms before the IPO and the behavior of venture capitalists at the IPO. We can detect significant differences in the behavior and...

In this paper, we analyze the investment and divestment patterns of different types of venture capitalists. Using a data set em- bracing all venture-backed IPOs that occurred on Germany's Neuer Markt we investigate whether the governance structures, objectives, abilities and track records of...

The goal of this paper is to point out the role played by private equity investors (venture-capital companies and corporate investors) in the emergence of a new biotechnology industry in Germany in the second half of the 90?s. This analysis takes into account the different business models and...

This paper examines how capital is determined by German banks. We analyse whether the determinants found in the previous empirical literature hold for the special German banking sector with its three characteristic banking groups of savings banks, cooperative banks and other banks. On the basis...

This paper sets out to analyze the influence of different types of venture capitalists on the performance of their portfolio firms around and after IPO. We investigate the hypothesis that different governance structures, objectives, and track records of different types of VCs have a significant...

Owners of private companies are often highly underdiversified which exposes them to idiosyncratic risk. We investigate the consequences of underdiversification at the company level. Information on US companies and their owners is obtained from the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Survey of...

This paper identifies the entrepreneur's exposure to idiosyncratic risk as an important determinant of the capital structure of private companies. The exposure to idiosyncratic risk is approximated by the share of personal net worth invested in one company (SNWI). Exposure to idiosyncratic risk...

This paper studies the influence of the private benefits of control on the capital structure and the growth of private companies. It is argued that companies in which existing owners would lose more control if they expanded, have smaller equity increases, are more highly levered and grow more...

Syndication, which is a joint realization of one project/one investment by several capital providers, is a long existing phenomenon that plays a central role in many financial market segments. Within this paper we develop a theoretical model focusing on the dynamic aspect of syndication, namely...

This paper analyzes the importance of equity finance for the R&D activity of small and medium-sized enterprises. We use information on almost 6000 German SMEs from a company survey. Using the intensity of banking competition at the district level as instrument to control for endogeneity, we find...