The Choice of Exit: Influence of Private Equity Investors and Buyout Entry

The choice of exit method is an inevitable decision faced by entrepreneurs and private equity (PE) investors. The existing literature addresses four categories of factors which influence this choice of exit method between initial public offering (IPO) and acquisition: industry-related factors, market-timing variables, deal-specific factors and demand-for-funds factors. We extend the literature by introducing a new category of factors, ‘PE investor characteristics’, and test if this category has a significant effect on the choice of exit method. We also test if the type of entry has an influence on the exit method. We find that PE investor characteristics play an important role in the choice of exit method. The existence of a large syndicate of PE investors in the same firm increases the probability of an IPO exit, but the presence of a foreign PE investor reduces this probability. Moreover, unlike in developed markets, the cost of debt does not affect the choice of exit method in India. We further consider specific exit methods such as strategic sale, financial sale and buyback and find consistent results. We find that in buyout transactions, the probability of an IPO exit is less than that of a strategic sale. Finally, we present a unique finding that the probability of a buyback as opposed to an IPO is higher if a firm is in the real estate sector.