Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Business and Policy Studies

Series Vol. 11 , 13 September 2023


Open Access | Article

The Positive Role of Private Equity and LBOs in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Response to The Negative Opinion

Zhilin Song * 1
1 East China University of Political Science and Law

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences, Vol. 11, 17-23
Published 13 September 2023. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Zhilin Song. The Positive Role of Private Equity and LBOs in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Response to The Negative Opinion. AEMPS (2023) Vol. 11: 17-23. DOI: 10.54254/2754-1169/11/20230500.

Abstract

In western countries, after nearly 40 years of rapid development, private equity firms have used leveraged buyouts to perfection in M&A activities, yielding unlimited benefits for different subjects. Nevertheless, some people claim that, private equity and LBOs are unfair practices, which is harmful in many spheres. Especially in China, there are many problems behind the immature introduction of private equity. Therefore, to respond to these arguments, this essay aims to explain the positive aspects of private equity and LBOs, illustrate why these benefits can be achieved, and prove those negative views are unreasonable. Supported by some scholar’s conclusions, statistics, and specific examples, it can be concluded that, private equity and LBOs are helpful to reduce agency costs, improve corporation value in targets, and create tax income for a country’s Treasury. Moreover, they have little effect on unemployment, the insolvency risk caused by leveraged buyouts is manageable, and the transaction process of them becomes safer.

Keywords

private equity, LBOs, agency costs, target companies, tax revenues

References

1. Adolf Berle, Gardiner Means: The Modern Corporation and Private Property. 1st edn. The Macmillan Company, America (1932).

2. Michael Jensen, William Meckling: Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure. Journal of Financial Economics 3(4), 305-360 (1976).

3. William Bratton: Private Equity’s Three Lessons for Agency Theory. European Business Organization Law Review 9, 509-533 (2015).

4. Ronald Masulis, Randall Thomas: Does Private Equity Create Wealth? The Effect of Private Equity and Derivatives on Corporate Governance. The University of Chicago Law Review 76(1), 219-260 (2009).

5. Michael Jensen: Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers. American Economic Review 76(2), 323-329 (1986).

6. Steven Kaplan: The Effects of Management Buyouts on Operating Performance and Value. Journal of Financial Economics 24(2), 217-254 (1989).

7. Richard Harris, Donald Siegel, Mike Wright: Assessing the Impact of Management Buyouts on Economic Efficiency: Plant-Level Evidence from the United Kingdom. The Review of Economics and Statistics 87, 148-153 (2005).

8. Michael Jensen, Steven Kaplan, Laura Stiglin: Effects of LBOs on Tax Revenues of the U.S. Treasury. Tax Notes 42(6), 1-18 (1989).

9. Paul Krugman: All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos. The New York Times, at A39 (2011).

10. Frank Lichtenberg, Donald Siegel: The Effects of Leveraged Buyouts on Productivity and Related Aspects of Firm Behavior. Journal of Financial Economics 27(1), 165-194 (1990).

11. Steven Davis et al.: Private Equity and Employment. In: the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, pp. 43-64. The World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland (2008).

12. Kevin Amess, Mike Wright: Leveraged Buyouts, Private Equity and Jobs. Small Business Economics 38, 419-430 (2012).

13. Brian Ayash, Mahdi Rastad: Leveraged Buyouts and Financial Distress. Finance Research Letters 38, Article 101452 (2021).

14. Alexandros Seretakis: A Comparative Examination of Private Equity in the United States and Europe: Accounting for the Past and Predicting the Future of European Private Equity. Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law 18, 613-667 (2013).

15. Review and Prospect of China’s PE Investment Market Development, www. Cs.cm.cn, https://www.cs.com.cn/xwzx/zt2017/20200813_96300/02/202012/t20201217_6121900.html, last accessed 2022/10/03.

16. Review and Prospect of Domestic Private Equity Market Development, Consumption Daily, http://www.xfrb.com.cn/article/focus/13122363682520.html, last accessed 2022/10/03.

17. Peng Wang: Analysis of the current situation and future development of China’s private equity investment. Business Culture 5, 148-149 (2012).

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Authors who publish this series agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this series.

2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this series.

3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open Access Instruction).

Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Business and Policy Studies
ISBN (Print)
978-1-915371-49-2
ISBN (Online)
978-1-915371-50-8
Published Date
13 September 2023
Series
Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
ISSN (Print)
2754-1169
ISSN (Online)
2754-1177
DOI
10.54254/2754-1169/11/20230500
Copyright
13 September 2023
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated