Core institutions of UK corporate governance, in particular those relating to takeovers, board structure and directors' duties, are strongly orientated towards a norm of shareholder primacy. Beyond the core, in particular at the intersection of insolvency and employment law, stakeholder...

This paper responds to Professor Donald C. Langevoort's essay entitled "The Behavioral Economics of Mergers and Acquisitions" (12 Transactions: Tenn. J. Bus. L. 65 (2011)). Together with Professor Langevoort's essay and another responsive work written from the standpoint of behavioral psychology...

This paper explores the impact of target CEOs' retirement preferences on takeovers. Using retirement age as proxy for CEOs' private merger costs, we find strong evidence that target CEOs' preferences affect merger activity. The likelihood of receiving a successful takeover bid is sharply higher...

In a large sample of U.S. M&As over 1990-2007 we find that value is created when risk-takers absorb risk-avoiding target firms, but it is destroyed when bidders with a conservative investment policy takeover risk-taking target firms. This value effect is particularly pronounced when bidders are...

The principal management theoretical lenses for examining leveraged buyouts have been the agency theory and information asymmetries. Occasionally a wider number of theories and concepts have been invoked, such as the parenting advantage, the resource-based view, and the market for corporate...

A wide range of definitions exists of what constitutes value creation and generation in private equity buyouts. At the core of the problem is that our understanding of the diverse set of levers, drivers and mechanisms by which financial value is generated has been inconsistent and incomplete....

Private Equity restructuring of companies using debt finance has been criticised for increasing financial distress and bankruptcy in the corporate sector and this was especially so in the aftermath of the financial crisis. We build a unique data set comprising the population of over eight...

Detractors have warned that Private Equity (PE) funds tend to over-lever their portfolio companies because of an option-like payoff, building up debt overhang and widespread bankruptcy risks. Drawing on standard trade-off theory, this paper argues PE-ownership leads to higher levels of optimal...

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...