Private equity buyouts & firm exporting during the global financial crisis

This paper examines the impact of the global financial crisis on the firm-level exporting of private equity-backed companies. With a sample of over 600 UK companies which were under private equity ownership during the financial crisis, we show that the exporting of sponsored firms was significantly more resilient to the effects of the crisis, relative to a matched sample of control firms. Moreover, private equity-backed companies were also less likely to exit the export market during the crisis. We provide evidence that more efficient working capital and cash flow management may have helped sponsored companies maintain their levels of exporting relative to similar, non sponsored firms. Our results align with recent evidence that private equity-backed companies may outperform non sponsored peers during economic downturns.