Research Question/Issue: We examine the governance role of private equity (PE) firms in post-LBO companies in the USA. We propose and test whether PE firms remove entrenched CEOs or CEOs who cause agency problems. Research Findings/Insights: Using archival data from a sample of 126 PE sponsored...

We review the theory and evidence on venture capital (VC) and other private equity: why professional private equity exists, what private equity managers do with their portfolio companies, what returns they earn, who earns more and why, what determines the design of contracts signed between (i)...

We investigate the role of firms' country of origin in financial leverage decisions using data on foreign joint ventures in China. We hypothesize that national culture enters the joint optimization process leading to foreign joint ventures' leverage decisions and that it affects leverage...

In this paper we investigate the effects of debt usage on (risk-adjusted) equity returns in private equity-backed buyout transactions. We use a proprietary data set of more than 700 realized European and North American buyouts acquired between 1990 and 2006 to empirically assess theoretical...

We document the implications of an LBO for the target firm's peers in terms of follow-on acquisitions, alliances, investment, and governance changes. LBOs tend to lead overall merger activity, predicting both more LBOs and strategic acquisitions in the industry. LBOs predict significant changes...

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the main theories and survey the empirical evidence on the impact of private equity leveraged buyouts (LBOs) on innovative activity at target companies. I illustrate how the theoretical lenses through which LBOs are described have adapted to the...

This paper investigates the relationship between leverage and returns in private equity buyout transactions. In contrast to the predictions of traditional capital structure theory, we find that transactions financed with large amounts of debt are associated higher transaction prices and lower...

Using a dataset comprising 88 Private Equity (PE) backed Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs) completed and exited during the period 1999-2008, this study sheds new light on the impact of buyout vendor source and PE investor experience on post-buyout efficiency during the first 3 years after the...