[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fmg/fmgdps/dp698.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Borrow Cheap, Buy High? The Determinants of Leverage and Pricing in Buyouts

Author

Listed:
  • Ulf Axelson
  • Tim Jenkinsom
  • Per Strömberg
  • Michael S. Weisbach
Abstract
Private equity sponsors pay special attention to designing capital structure, making buyouts an interesting setting for examining capital structure theories. In a detailed international sample of buyouts, we find that buyout leverage is unrelated to factors that drive public firm leverage, such as industry factors and other cross-sectional characteristics, contrary to what standard capital structure theories suggest. Instead, variation in economy-wide credit conditions is the main driver of leverage and pricing in buyouts, while having little impact on public firms. Higher deal leverage is associated with lower buyout fund returns, suggesting that acquirers overpay when access to credit is easier.

Suggested Citation

  • Ulf Axelson & Tim Jenkinsom & Per Strömberg & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "Borrow Cheap, Buy High? The Determinants of Leverage and Pricing in Buyouts," FMG Discussion Papers dp698, Financial Markets Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:fmg:fmgdps:dp698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lse.ac.uk/fmg/workingPapers/discussionPapers/fmg_pdfs/dp698.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    3. Shai Bernstein & Josh Lerner & Morten Sorensen & Per Strömberg, 2017. "Private Equity and Industry Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(4), pages 1198-1213, April.
    4. Ivo Welch, 2004. "Capital Structure and Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(1), pages 106-131, February.
    5. Ludovic Phalippou & Oliver Gottschalg, 2009. "The Performance of Private Equity Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1747-1776, April.
    6. Stuart, Toby E. & Yim, Soojin, 2010. "Board interlocks and the propensity to be targeted in private equity transactions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 174-189, July.
    7. Berger, Philip G & Ofek, Eli & Yermack, David L, 1997. "Managerial Entrenchment and Capital Structure Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1411-1438, September.
    8. Ulf Axelson & Per Strömberg & Michael S. Weisbach, 2009. "Why Are Buyouts Levered? The Financial Structure of Private Equity Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1549-1582, August.
    9. Steven N. Kaplan & Antoinette Schoar, 2005. "Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1791-1823, August.
    10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    11. Steven Kaplan, 1989. "Management Buyouts: Evidence on Taxes as a Source of Value," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 611-632, July.
    12. Boucly, Quentin & Sraer, David & Thesmar, David, 2011. "Growth LBOs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 432-453.
    13. Baker, Malcolm & Greenwood, Robin & Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2003. "The maturity of debt issues and predictable variation in bond returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 261-291, November.
    14. Anil Shivdasani & Yihui Wang, 2011. "Did Structured Credit Fuel the LBO Boom?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1291-1328, August.
    15. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    16. Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2007. "Do Tests of Capital Structure Theory Mean What They Say?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1747-1787, August.
    17. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    18. Steven N. Kaplan & Jeremy C. Stein, 1993. "THE EVOLUTION OF BUYOUT PRICING AND FINANCIAL STRUCTURE (OR, WHAT WENT WRONG) IN THE 1980s," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 6(1), pages 72-88, March.
    19. Kaplan, Steven, 1989. "The effects of management buyouts on operating performance and value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 217-254.
    20. Mark T. Leary & Michael R. Roberts, 2005. "Do Firms Rebalance Their Capital Structures?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2575-2619, December.
    21. Cotter, James F. & Peck, Sarah W., 2001. "The structure of debt and active equity investors: The case of the buyout specialist," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 101-147, January.
    22. Cara S. Lown & Donald P. Morgan & Sonali Rohatgi, 2000. "Listening to loan officers: the impact of commercial credit standards on lending and output," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jul, pages 1-16.
    23. Demiroglu, Cem & James, Christopher M., 2010. "The role of private equity group reputation in LBO financing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 306-330, May.
    24. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:1:p:1-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Stromberg, 2009. "Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 121-146, Winter.
    26. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1443-1493 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Mark T. Leary, 2009. "Bank Loan Supply, Lender Choice, and Corporate Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1143-1185, June.
    28. Simon Gilchrist & Egon Zakrajsek, 2012. "Credit Spreads and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1692-1720, June.
    29. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:3:p:611-32 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2002. "Market Timing and Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 1-32, February.
    31. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:1:p:19-40 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    33. Jeffrey A. Wurgler & Malcolm P. Baker, 2001. "Market Timing and Capital Structure," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm181, Yale School of Management.
    34. Shourun Guo & Edith S. Hotchkiss & Weihong Song, 2011. "Do Buyouts (Still) Create Value?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(2), pages 479-517, April.
    35. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    36. Steven N. Kaplan & Jeremy C. Stein, 1993. "The Evolution of Buyout Pricing and Financial Structure in the 1980s," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 313-357.
    37. Toby Stuart & Soojin Yim, 2008. "Board Interlocks and the Propensity to be Targeted in Private Equity Transactions," NBER Working Papers 14189, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Victoria Ivashina & Anna Kovner, 2011. "The Private Equity Advantage: Leveraged Buyout Firms and Relationship Banking," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(7), pages 2462-2498.
    40. Shyam-Sunder, Lakshmi & C. Myers, Stewart, 1999. "Testing static tradeoff against pecking order models of capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 219-244, February.
    41. Korajczyk, Robert A. & Levy, Amnon, 2003. "Capital structure choice: macroeconomic conditions and financial constraints," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 75-109, April.
    42. Pierre Collin-Dufresn & Robert S. Goldstein & J. Spencer Martin, 2001. "The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2177-2207, December.
    43. Muscarella, Chris J & Vetsuypens, Michael R, 1990. "Efficiency and Organizational Structure: A Study of Reverse LBOs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1389-1413, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kayhan, Ayla & Titman, Sheridan, 2007. "Firms' histories and their capital structures," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 1-32, January.
    2. Andrew Metrick & Ayako Yasuda, 2011. "Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: a Survey," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 619-654, September.
    3. Maclachlan, Iain C, 2007. "An empirical study of corporate bond pricing with unobserved capital structure dynamics," MPRA Paper 28416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Diana Bonfim & Paula Antão, 2012. "The dynamics of capital structure decisions," Working Papers w201206, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    5. Amini, Shahram & Elmore, Ryan & Öztekin, Özde & Strauss, Jack, 2021. "Can machines learn capital structure dynamics?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2012. "Market timing, taxes and capital structure: evidence from Vietnam," OSF Preprints t3mvs, Center for Open Science.
    7. Arcot, Sridhar & Fluck, Zsuzsanna & Gaspar, José-Miguel & Hege, Ulrich, 2015. "Fund managers under pressure: Rationale and determinants of secondary buyouts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 102-135.
    8. Çolak, Gönül & Gungoraydinoglu, Ali & Öztekin, Özde, 2018. "Global leverage adjustments, uncertainty, and country institutional strength," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 41-56.
    9. Wu, Xueping & Au Yeung, Chau Kin, 2012. "Firm growth type and capital structure persistence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 3427-3443.
    10. Leary, Mark T. & Roberts, Michael R., 2010. "The pecking order, debt capacity, and information asymmetry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 332-355, March.
    11. Ampenberger, Markus & Schmid, Thomas & Achleitner, Ann-Kristin & Kaserer, Christoph, 2009. "Capital structure decisions in family firms: empirical evidence from a bank-based economy," CEFS Working Paper Series 2009-05, Technische Universität München (TUM), Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS).
    12. Murray Z. Frank & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Capital Structure Decisions: Which Factors Are Reliably Important?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 1-37, March.
    13. Giorgio Canarella & Stephen M. Miller, 2019. "Determinants of Optimal Capital Structure and Speed of Adjustment: Evidence from the U.S. ICT Sector," Working papers 2019-06, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    14. Ebrahim, M. Shahid & Girma, Sourafel & Shah, M. Eskandar & Williams, Jonathan, 2014. "Dynamic capital structure and political patronage: The case of Malaysia," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 117-128.
    15. Im, Hyun Joong & Kang, Ya & Shon, Janghoon, 2020. "How does uncertainty influence target capital structure?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Elsas, Ralf & Florysiak, David, 2008. "Empirical Capital Structure Research: New Ideas, Recent Evidence, and Methodological Issues," Discussion Papers in Business Administration 4743, University of Munich, Munich School of Management.
    17. Pawel Bilinski & Abdulkadir Mohamed, 2015. "The Signaling Effect of Durations between Equity and Debt Issues," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2-3), pages 159-190, May.
    18. Pinnuck, Matt & Shekhar, Chander, 2013. "The profit versus loss heuristic and firm financing decisions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 420-439.
    19. Ajid ur Rehman & Man Wang & Sultan Sikandar Mirza, 2017. "How do Chinese firms adjust their financial leverage: an empirical investigation using multiple GMM models," China Finance and Economic Review, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-30, December.
    20. Malenko, Andrey & Malenko, Nadya, 2015. "A theory of LBO activity based on repeated debt-equity conflicts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 607-627.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:fmg:fmgdps:dp698. 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: The FMG Administration (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lse.ac.uk/fmg/ .

    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.