The paper investigates how Private Equity (PE) ownership influences out-performance of a high-growth firm, and whether it differs from the effect of two other important types of financial investors: banks and non-bank financial firms. We transform the levered return on equity into a unlevered...

This study investigates the transition from being a listed company with a dispersed ownership structure to being a privately held company with a concentrated ownership structure. We consider a sample of private equity backed portfolio companies to evaluate the consequences of the corporate...

We are able to shed light on the black box of restructuring tools private equity investors use to improve the operational performance of their portfolio companies. By building on previous work considering performance evaluation of PE backed companies, we analyze whether private equity improves...

This article aims to analyze the evolution of private equity over the last decade in terms of valuation (asset prices), determinants of private equity returns and the role that leverage and corporate governance plays in the success of private equity. The years 2005-2007 were characterized by a...

In this paper we test the proposition put forward by private equity practitioners that they undertake “governance arbitrage”. This proposition suggests that companies with higher agency costs are more likely to receive a bid from a PE firm.We find evidence that companies with higher agency...

What keeps corporate managers from underperforming or disregarding shareholders interests? In contrast to most scholars and policymakers who believe legal and regulatory oversight is key, Henry Manne's Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control describes a private or entirely invisible hand...

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...

This paper investigates under what circumstances boards of directors fire CEOs and whether this action leads to better firm performance. We use unique and detailed data, covering 473 companies in the transition region, on boards’ actions, expectations and beliefs about CEO ability. We find...

We test under what circumstances boards discipline managers and whether such interventions improve performance. We exploit exogenous variation due to the staggered adoption of corporate governance laws in formerly Communist countries coupled with detailed ‘hard’ information about the...

This paper investigates the wealth effects of private equity (PE) investor purchases of shares in German quoted companies. It is the first study to analyze these effects for the German market which is particularly interesting due to its distinct characteristics with regard to the ownership...