Private equity (PE) has developed into a well-established asset class with strong growth in capital commitments over the last decades. Consequently, fund returns have decreased over time and investors have become more cost conscious. Based on a unique data set of 358 PE buyout funds with vintage...

The paper analyzes the value creation drivers and operational alpha in private equity based on the proprietary data. The paper provides empirical evidence that operational improvements are the key to successful generation of value for investors

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...

Most of the existing research on value creation drivers in private equity buyouts is restricted to the US and the UK, whereas continental European countries are not included. In addition, most of the generally applied methods for measuring the importance of different value creation drivers do...

Goal structures in family firms seems of particular interest to the field as the overall orientation and the objectives of family firms are determined in an area of potential conflict between the two subsystems of firm and family. We asked shareholders of German family firms to rate the...

Many scholars argue that from a cognitive perspective the creative act of opportunity recognition can be conceptualized as a transformation process of bringing together previously unrelated knowledge in order to create a new means-ends framework. Along these lines, the present paper empirically...

Several empirical studies have investigated the selection process of venture capitalists (VCs), but the attributes of their attractiveness from entrepreneurs' perspective remain unknown. Using conjoint analysis based on a sample of 44 German tech entrepreneurs, we investigate how information...

Using a unique proprietary data set of 460 realized buyouts completed between 1990 and 2005, we examine the risk appetite of private equity (PE) sponsors in different states of the PE market and analyse key determinants of deal-level equity risk. We develop a new approach to mathematically model...

EV/EBITDA multiple expansion in Private Equity (PE) transactions strongly influences deal returns. As multiple expansion is the result of deal pricing differences between entry and exit, this paper attempts to shed light on how relative deal pricing influences multiple expansion and deal...

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...