IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v64y2009i1p75-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Should Investors Bet on the Jockey or the Horse? Evidence from the Evolution of Firms from Early Business Plans to Public Companies

Author

Listed:
  • STEVEN N. KAPLAN
  • BERK A. SENSOY
  • PER STRÖMBERG

Abstract

We study how firm characteristics evolve from early business plan to initial public offering (IPO) to public company for 50 venture capital (VC)‐financed companies. Firm business lines remain remarkably stable while management turnover is substantial. Management turnover is positively related to alienable asset formation. We obtain similar results using all 2004 IPOs, suggesting that our main results are not specific to VC‐backed firms or the time period. The results suggest that, at the margin, investors in start‐ups should place more weight on the business (“the horse”) than on the management team (“the jockey”). The results also inform theories of the firm.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven N. Kaplan & Berk A. Sensoy & Per Strömberg, 2009. "Should Investors Bet on the Jockey or the Horse? Evidence from the Evolution of Firms from Early Business Plans to Public Companies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 75-115, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:64:y:2009:i:1:p:75-115
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01429.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01429.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01429.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:64:y:2009:i:1:p:75-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.