IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tut/cremwp/201209.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Private Equity Firms Foster Innovation? Evidence from French LBOs

Author

Listed:
  • Anne-Laure Le Nadant

    (University of Caen Basse-Normandie, CREM-CNRS, UMR 6211)

  • Frédéric Perdreau

    (University of St-Etienne, COACTIS, EA 4161)

Abstract

Agency theory has historically presented buyouts as a superior governance framework that generates economic efficiencies in the short term but these transactions might have a negative impact on long-term growth and innovation. In this study, we use a strategic entrepreneurship perspective to argue that private equity firm's extensive network and relationships, and expertise and competencies help managers to innovate. Using a propensity score methodology, we provide an empirical analysis of the innovative efforts of a sample of 89 French manufacturing firms that underwent a buyout between 2001 and 2005. The matching estimates (average treatment on the treated, ATT) of the effect of LBOs on firm level of innovation expenditures in 2006 show no significant differences between LBO targets and comparable companies that did not go through an LBO. In contrast, we find significant effects of LBOs on both service innovation and marketing innovations in design and packaging and product promotion. Results suggest that private equity firms provide marketing capabilities or encourage managers of LBO targets to build new innovation strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne-Laure Le Nadant & Frédéric Perdreau, 2012. "Do Private Equity Firms Foster Innovation? Evidence from French LBOs," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 201209, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    • Handle: RePEc:tut:cremwp:201209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ged.univ-rennes1.fr/nuxeo/site/esupversions/68edebc6-7bf6-4305-b9e1-415e00f26a5b
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malone, Stewart C., 1989. "Characteristics of smaller company leveraged buyouts," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 4(5), pages 349-359, September.
    2. Mike Wright & Robert E. Hoskisson & Lowell W. Busenitz & Jay Dial, 2001. "Finance and management buyouts: Agency versus entrepreneurship perspectives," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 239-261, July.
    3. Lichtenberg, Frank R. & Siegel, Donald, 1990. "The effects of leveraged buyouts on productivity and related aspects of firm behavior," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 165-194, September.
    4. Zahra, Shaker A., 1995. "Corporate entrepreneurship and financial performance: The case of management leveraged buyouts," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 225-247, May.
    5. Boucly, Quentin & Sraer, David & Thesmar, David, 2011. "Growth LBOs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 432-453.
    6. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    7. Meuleman,M. & Amess, K. & Wright, M. & Scholes, L., 2008. "Agency, strategic entrepreneurship and the performance of private equity backed buyouts," Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Working Paper Series 2008-05, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.
    8. Josh Lerner & Morten Sorensen & Per Strömberg, 2011. "Private Equity and Long‐Run Investment: The Case of Innovation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(2), pages 445-477, April.
    9. Cumming, Douglas & Siegel, Donald S. & Wright, Mike, 2007. "Private equity, leveraged buyouts and governance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 439-460, September.
    10. Ughetto, Elisa, 2010. "Assessing the contribution to innovation of private equity investors: A study on European buyouts," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 126-140, February.
    11. Hans Bruining & Mike Wright, 2002. "Entrepreneurial orientation in management buy-outs and the contribution of venture capital," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 147-168, April.
    12. Anne-Laure Le Nadant & Frédéric Perdreau, 2006. "Financial Profile of Leveraged Buyout Targets: Some French Evidence," Post-Print halshs-00151826, HAL.
    13. Smith, Abbie J., 1990. "Corporate ownership structure and performance *1: The case of management buyouts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 143-164, September.
    14. Wright, Mike & Thompson, Steve & Robbie, Ken, 1992. "Venture capital and management-led, leveraged buy-outs: A European perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 47-71, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laure-Anne Parpaleix & Kevin Levillain & Blanche Segrestin, 2018. "Financing innovation: two models of private equity investment," Post-Print hal-01768986, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anne-Laure Le Nadant & Frédéric Perdreau, 2011. "LBOs and innovation: the French case," Post-Print halshs-00669910, HAL.
    2. Amess, Kevin & Stiebale, Joel & Wright, Mike, 2015. "The impact of private equity on firms' innovation activity," DICE Discussion Papers 184, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    3. Tåg, Joacim, 2010. "The Real Effects of Private Equity Buyouts," Working Paper Series 851, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    4. Fabio Bertoni & María Ferrer & José Martí, 2013. "The different roles played by venture capital and private equity investors on the investment activity of their portfolio firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 607-633, April.
    5. Renneboog, Luc & Vansteenkiste, Cara, 2017. "Leveraged Buyouts : A Survey of the Literature," Discussion Paper 2017-015, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    6. Amess, Kevin & Stiebale, Joel & Wright, Mike, 2016. "The impact of private equity on firms׳ patenting activity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 147-160.
    7. Wilson, Nick & Wright, Mike & Siegel, Donald S. & Scholes, Louise, 2012. "Private equity portfolio company performance during the global recession," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 193-205.
    8. Scellato, Giuseppe & Ughetto, Elisa, 2013. "Real effects of private equity investments: Evidence from European buyouts," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2642-2649.
    9. Hans Bruining & Ernst Verwaal & Mike Wright, 2013. "Private equity and entrepreneurial management in management buy-outs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 591-605, April.
    10. Kevin Amess & Mike Wright, 2012. "Leveraged buyouts, private equity and jobs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 419-430, May.
    11. Bruining, J. & Verwaal, E., 2005. "Successful management buyouts: Are they really more entrepreneurial?," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2005-076-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    12. Ughetto, Elisa, 2010. "Assessing the contribution to innovation of private equity investors: A study on European buyouts," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 126-140, February.
    13. Belloc, Filippo, 2010. "Corporate governance and innovation: an organizational perspective," MPRA Paper 21495, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Erich Battistin & Paolo Bortoluzzi & Fabio Buttignon & Marco Vedovato, 2017. "Minority and majority private equity investments: firm performance and governance," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 21(3), pages 659-684, September.
    15. Miguel Meuleman & Kevin Amess & Mike Wright & Louise Scholes, 2009. "Agency, Strategic Entrepreneurship, and the Performance of Private Equity–Backed Buyouts," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(1), pages 213-239, January.
    16. Renneboog, L.D.R. & Simons, T., 2005. "Public-to-Private Transactions : LBOs, MBOs, MBIs and IBOs," Other publications TiSEM 3b76799c-591c-4d22-b126-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Laurent Bouvier & Tahir M. Nisar & David McMillan, 2015. "Design and impacts of securitized leveraged buyouts," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1009307-100, December.
    18. Tykvová, Tereza & Borell, Mariela, 2012. "Do private equity owners increase risk of financial distress and bankruptcy?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 138-150.
    19. Fabio Bertoni & Anne-Laure Le Nadant & Frédéric Perdreau, 2014. "Innovation and R&D investments by leveraged buyout companies in times of crisis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 856-864.
    20. Charlie Weir & Peter Jones & Mike Wright, 2015. "Public to private transactions, private equity and financial health in the UK: an empirical analysis of the impact of going private," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 19(1), pages 91-112, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Buyouts; Innovation; Private Equity Firms; Strategic Entrepreneurship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tut:cremwp:201209. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: GERMAIN Lucie (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crmrefr.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.