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PublicationBuy low, sell high? Do private equity fund managers have market timing abilities?( 2022-01-31)When investors commit capital to a private equity fund, the money is not immediately invested but is called by the fund manager throughout an investment period of up to five years. The private equity business model allows fund managers to invest and divest the committed capital during the fund's lifetime at their own discretion, which gives them the flexibility to time the markets. Based on 7,591 private equity deals, which are benchmarked against 14,390 M&A transaction multiples, we find evidence that on average private equity funds are able to create value by timing the financial markets. Market timing ability is not captured by performance measures such as the PME, yet it is a potential source of returns for investors.Type:Journal:Volume:
Scopus© Citations 6 -
PublicationDeposit Withdrawals from Distressed Banks: Client Relationships Matter(Elsevier, 2020-02)We study retail deposit withdrawals from commercial banks that were differentially exposed to distress during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. We show that the propensity of clients to withdraw deposits increases with the severity of bank distress. However, an exclusive pre-crisis bank-client relationship eliminates withdrawal risk. The mechanism through which strong bank-client relationships mitigate withdrawal risk relates to the transaction costs of switching accounts rather than informational rents or differentiated services. Our findings provide empirical support to the Basel III liquidity regulations that emphasize the role of well-established client relationships for the stability of bank funding.
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PublicationFamily ties in insider trading: A closer look at family firms( 2019)
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PublicationCompetition in the Credit Rating Industry: Benefits for Investors and Issuers(Elsevier, 2017-02)We empirically investigate the benefits of multiple ratings not only at issuance of debt instruments but also during the subsequent monitoring phase. Using a record of monthly credit rating migration data on all U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities rated by Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch between 1985 and 2012 (154'600 tranches), our results provide em-pirical evidence that rating agencies put more effort in rating and outlook revisions when tranches have assigned multiple ratings. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in the case of mul-tiple ratings, agencies do a better job in discriminating tranches with respect to default risk. On the downside, we observe a shift in collateral towards senior tranches and incentives for issuers to engage in rating shopping activities, but find no evidence that rating agencies exploit such behavior to attract more rating business. Our results contribute to the literature on information production of credit ratings and extend the perspective to the monitoring period after issuance.Type:Journal:Volume:
Scopus© Citations 16 -
PublicationShould Investors Care Where Private Equity Managers Went To School?( 2022)In this paper, we investigate whether the educational background of private equity managers, which represents an important part of their human capital, impacts fund performance. In particular, we explore three potential channels of how their educational background may influence fund performance: (i) institutional quality, (ii) individual performance, and (iii) academic variety. We find that a combination of top-tier education and work experience identifies individual performance in the management team. In addition, academic variety, in particular among graduates of high-ranked universities, rather than uniform institutional quality, is an important return driver.
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PublicationWinning a Deal in Private Equity: Do Educational Networks Matter?(Elsevier, 2020-09-14)In this paper, we investigate the role of educational ties in private equity. Although we cannot observe all the funds that bid for a target company, we construct the set of potential bidders based upon their size and investment cycle, as well as the location and sector of their target companies. By gathering detailed educational histories of fund partners and CEOs of target firms, we find a significantly higher incidence of educational ties in completed deals than exists among the set of potential bidders. We argue that educational ties between fund managers and CEOs of target companies play a (positive) role in sourcing deals and winning competitive transactions. The alma maters of CEOs and private equity partners are notably concentrated among the top universities, and we find that exclusivity of educational ties is important. However, we find no evidence that such educational ties produce higher returns for investors.
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PublicationHouseholds’ Pecking Order of Debt and the Pricing of Asset-Backed Securities( 2024)This paper studies the role of households' pecking order of debt in the pricing mechanism and rating migration of U.S. consumer debt asset-backed securities (ABS). Our empirical results show that the household's delinquency on mortgage and auto loan increases spreads of ABS using these loan types as collateral. However, an increase in delinquency on credit card and student loans often lower ABS spreads in other types of collateral. We argue that delinquencies on these types of loans in a household's loan portfolio provide liquidity to other loans. In contrast, rising delinquencies on mortgages, which are typically the first to be repaid in the pecking order, are an indicator of a severe shock that spills over to other loan types, triggering a simultaneous increase in ABS spreads. Furthermore, we find for residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) a lower probability of future rating downgrades in times of high mortgage delinquency. In general, ratings are adjusted according to changes in the business cycle. Our empirical results suggest that liquidity provision causes a larger downgrade probability, and thus, is not sufficient to avoid future downgrades.
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PublicationConflicts of Interest and the Role of Financial Advisors in M&A Transactions: Empirical Evidence from the Private Equity Industry(SoF-HSG, 2015)Financial advisors play an important role in M&A transactions. Private equity (PE) firms, in turn, are highly sought-after clients for financial advisors as they promise lucrative business due to their frequent engagements in acquisitions. We find that PE firms pay, on average, less for portfolio companies when their sell-side advisor has worked for the acquiring PE firm on the buy-side in past transactions. We refer to this as indirect relationships and argue that conflicts of interest be-tween financial advisors and their clients are the main driver for our results. Strategic acquirers do not benefit from these previous indirect relationships altogether.
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PublicationDo Private Equity Funds Always Pay Less? A Synergy-Related Explanation Based on Add-on Acquisitions(SoF - HSG, 2015-10)We assess the pricing of transactions undertaken by private equity (PE) funds in comparison to the transactions of strategic acquirers and sellers and focus on synergy gains as an explanatory factor. Controlling for company and deal characteristics, we show that PE funds pay 20% less, on average, than strategic buyers for comparable target corporations (we refer to this as the PE discount). Supplementing the existing literature on the PE discount in M&A transactions, we show that in add-on transactions, this PE discount disappears. When PE funds benefit from synergies, they are willing to pay the same price level as strategic acquirers would do in comparable transactions. In line with this synergy-related explanation, we find that PE funds sell their portfolio companies to strategic acquirers at prices comparable to those of strategic sellers. In divestitures to other PE funds (secondary deals), the PE discount prevails.
