Using a large sample of initial public offerings in the U.S. we show that personal connections between directors and top executives of issuers and underwriting banks result in significantly lower levels of IPO underpricing. We estimate the average effect to be about 12 percentage points. The...

Using a large sample of US acquisitions made between 1985 and 2013, we study the effect of financial constraints on acquisition gains and acquisition likelihood. Our findings show that financial constraints of target companies significantly increase acquisition premiums and abnormal returns for...

Using new data for the universe of firms covered in Amadeus, we reconstruct the portfolios of shareholders who hold equity stakes in private and publicly-traded European firms. We find great heterogeneity in the degree of portfolio diversification across large shareholders. Exploiting this...

We assess returns and risks to private equity investors from 35 countries for the time interval of 1996-2008. We find that returns to private equity (measured as return on book equity (ROE)) are significantly higher than ROEs to publicly traded equity. Using customary measures to adjust for...

This paper is an original attempt to analyse the effect of different cash holding policies on corporate investment decisions. In a dynamic framework, where firms have both present and future investment opportunities, corporate cash holding may secure the ability to invest in presence of market...

We use a very large sample of European private and public firms to show that financial flexibility attained through a conservative leverage policy is more important for private, small-medium-sized, and young firms and for firms in countries with less access to credit and weaker investor...

We extend the literature on how managerial traits relate to corporate choices by documenting that firms run by female CEOs have lower leverage, less volatile earnings, and a higher chance of survival than otherwise similar firms run by male CEOs. Additionally, transitions from male to female...

We use a large database of more than 685,000 European firms to show that financial flexibility attained through conservative leverage policies is more important for private, small, medium-sized and young firms and for firms in countries with lower access to credit and weaker investor protection....

Using the entire universe of Bankscope and Amadeus Top 250,000 we construct the portfolios of shareholders who hold equity stakes in publicly traded and privately held European banks for each year over the period 1999–2008. We show that about 62% of banks' ultimate largest shareholders are...

We demonstrate that a conservative leverage policy directed at maintaining financial flexibility can enhance investment ability. Our analysis reveals that following a period of low leverage, firms make larger capital expenditures and increase abnormal investment. We find that these new...