I analyse the effect of ownership structure and bank control on performance. I employ a unique data set of 715 German takeovers to test whether group structure, large shareholders, and bank control affect their value to shareholders. First, I find that takeovers increase bidder value, but...

Gaining access to technologies, competencies, and knowledge is observed as one of the major motives for corporate mergers and acquisitions. In this paper we show that a knowledge-based firm's probability of being a takeover target is influenced by whether relevant specific human capital aimed...

This study examines changes in block ownership for a large sample of listed and non-listed German firms. The frequency of block trading is similar to other countries, and the vast majority of block trades leads to changes in ultimate ownership (control transfers). Such changes are more likely...

This study provides new stylized facts on the determinants of corporate failure and acquisition in Germany. It also offers important lessons for the design of empirical studies. We show that firms experiencing failure or acquisition are significantly different from surviving firms on a number of...

This study investigates the determinants of changes in corporate ownership and firm failure, taking into account different types of sellers and buyers of control blocks. For a large panel of German corporations we find that firms are more likely to fail or to be sold when performance is poor,...

We study the role of private equity firms in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. We find that private equity-owned firms are more likely to become targets in crossborderM&A transactions. This effect is particularly strong in transactions where the target or its shareholders actively reach out...

Rhodes-Kropf and Viswanathan (2004) suggest an adverse selection role of corporate cash reserve. Specifically, if investors know a bidder does not have to issue to invest, an attempt to do so sends a strong pessimistic signal of overvaluation. Despite its intuitiveness, this notion has not been...

Private equity owned firms have more leverage, more intense compensation contracts, and higher productivity than comparable firms. We develop a theory of buyouts in oligopolistic markets that explains these facts. Private equity firms are more aggressive in inducing restructuring compared to...

Using linked employer-employee data from Sweden, a difference-in-difference approach, and 201 private equity buyouts undertaken between 1998 and 2004, we show that unemployment risk declines and labor income increases for employees in the wake of a private equity buyout. Unemployment risk...

We argue that the recent corporate governance reform in the Netherlands provides a natural experiment to explore the impact of changes in corporate governance on financing policy. We find that, relative to a control sample of comparable firms outside the Netherlands, Dutch firms significantly...