Search results

This paper aims to investigate how the passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) impacted the likelihood and timing of the decision of leveraged buyout (LBO) firms to exit via initial public offering (IPO) (reverse-LBO) and the mediating effect of reputed private equity (PE) firms.

The sample comprises firms that went private via LBO between 1990 and 2018. The authors use logistic and ordinary least square regression models to compare the effect of SOX on the re-listing decision and the time taken to re-list.

LBO firms were less likely to exit via public offering after SOX, and the time from LBO to IPO was significantly longer for exiting firms post-SOX. PE firm reputation partially reversed the reluctance to exit via IPO and shortened the time to exit.

The primary focus is RLBOs; the authors do not directly examine other methods of LBO exit. The findings have policy implications for unintended impacts of SOX. Despite the benefits of increasing transparency and protecting investors, SOX reduced the likelihood of going public and increased the time to IPO, potentially reducing product market competition.

RLBOs present a unique experimental setting as the authors can test the impact of SOX on both the likelihood and time to go public, whereas prior literature using first-time IPO samples are able to test only the likelihood. The authors also show that the reputation of the advising PE firm attenuates the reluctance and time taken for RLBOs to re-list. The authors are, thus, able to provide a new perspective on the impact of SOX on the going public decision.

This study aims to analyze the effect of cognitive load and social value orientation on managers’ preferences when they face with two types of restructuring choices in financially distressed firms: the first belonging to the family of organizational restructuring (massive layoffs) and the second to the family of financial restructuring (debt increases).

The authors investigate experimentally the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the decision to restructure leveraged buyout (LBO) firms in financial distress by using either massive layoffs or debt increases.

By investigating the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the restructuring decision of an LBO firm in financial distress, the research reveals that, on average, cognitively loaded managers prefer massive layoffs over increased debt levels. The massive layoffs seemingly provide a relatively easier way to avoid conflict with influential, residual claimants. In contrast, social value–oriented managers actively avoid massive layoffs and prefer to increase debt.

These results imply that the performance mechanisms emphasized to improve agency relations, for example, in LBOs, have their own limitations during periods of financial distress. This study shows that one of these limits is related to cognitive distortions and personality traits.

In this research, the originality lies in understanding how managers’ internal factors affect their restructuring decision-making, in the case of LBO firms in financial distress.

This paper aims to review, systematize and map the extant literature on private equity (PE) and study the underlying research agenda for investment selection and value creation in portfolio firms of PE investors. The PE investment process entails the preinvestment stage, where PE investors screen the target firms, and the postinvestment stage, where PE investors monitor the funded firms. With the motive to understand both stages, this review consolidates the findings of existing literature.

This research adopts a systematic literature review approach to study the underlying themes in PE investment literature. To adequately profile the key research areas, the authors have adopted citation classics in addition to keyword search and drawn the most significant papers in this field of research based on citation metrics.

The review presents a heterogeneous set of themes by encapsulating the relevant PE literature and identifies significant and emergent themes within the broad research area of investment and performance. The foundational themes found are selection determinants for PE investments, value creation in PE investments and selection vs value-adding effect of PE investors. While the emergent themes are the relative performance of PE investments; sources of value creation; skill, luck and social capital in PE; and resource dependency vis-à-vis PE. Each theme or subtheme chalks out the underlying research agendas for future researchers.

To build an understanding of the selection determinants and value creation, this review addresses the need to synthesize and align the PE literature concerning pre and post investment stages. PE is a fertile research area that is systematically captured in this review by identifying themes, subthemes and avenues for future research.

This paper offers a practical overview of the U.S. credit cycle and the challenges it poses, along with a perspective on where we seem to be in the cycle in early 2023. Suggestions are then offered for how corporate executives can address cyclical challenges from a corporate strategy perspective.

The United States credit cycle was out into context by following the trend of Moody’s Baa corporate bond yields from January 1919 to November 2022. Under the Moody’s rating system, Baa is the lowest level of investment grade credit, and as such it possesses speculative characteristics that are sensitive to cyclical dynamics. Another reason for choosing Baa credit patterns for analysis is data availability: over 100-years of continuous Baa data is searchable at the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The prior credit cycle wave of progressively lower inflation and interest rates began in 1982 and ended in 2020. The current credit cycle of wave of progressively higher inflation and interest rates will present strategic risks and opportunities that executives will increasingly have to deal with.

This is the first corporate strategy paper we are aware that practically addresses the credit cycle change. It is also the first paper we are aware that provides practical suggestions on how to address that change from a corporate strategy perspective.