Intermediation in Private Equity: The Role of Placement Agents

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 1095-1116
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Cain ◽  
Stephen B. McKeon ◽  
Steven Davidoff Solomon

Intermediation in private equity involves illiquid investments, professional investors, and high information asymmetry. We use this unique setting to empirically evaluate theoretical predictions regarding intermediation. Using placement agents has become nearly ubiquitous, but agents are associated with significantly lower abnormal returns in venture and real estate funds, consistent with investor capture and influence peddling. However, returns are higher for buyout funds employing a top-tier agent and for first-time real estate and venture funds employing an agent, and are less volatile for agent-affiliated funds, consistent with a certification role. Our results suggest heterogeneous motives for intermediation in the private equity industry.

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Alcock ◽  
Andrew Baum ◽  
Nicholas Colley ◽  
Eva Steiner

2020 ◽  
pp. 2050015
Author(s):  
Archana Jain ◽  
Chinmay Jain ◽  
Revansiddha Basavaraj Khanapure

Hendershott et al. (2011, Does Algorithmic Trading Improve Liquidity? Journal of Finance 66, 1–33) show that algorithmic traders improve liquidity in equity markets. An equally important and unanswered question is whether they improve liquidity when information asymmetry is high. We use days surrounding earnings announcement as a period of high information asymmetry. First, we follow Hendershott et al. (2011, Does Algorithmic Trading Improve Liquidity? Journal of Finance 66, 1–33) to use introduction of NYSE autoquote as a natural experiment. We find that increased algorithmic trading (AT) as a result of NYSE autoquote does not improve liquidity around earnings announcements. Next, we use trade-to-order volume % and cancel rate as a proxy for algorithmic trading and find that abnormal spreads surrounding the days of earnings announcement are significantly higher for stocks with higher AT. Our findings indicate that algorithmic traders reduces their role of liquidity provision in markets when information asymmetry is high. These findings shed further light on the role of liquidity provision by algorithmic traders in the financial markets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 2050005
Author(s):  
DUNG VIET TRAN

Using a large sample of U.S. bank holding companies (BHC) from 2000:Q1–2017:Q4, we investigate the impacts of dividend policy to bank earnings management, and document that banks that pay dividends tend to be less opaque than banks that do not pay dividends. The dividend policy not only impacts the conditional average earnings management of banks, but also exerts influence on their dispersion. The impact of dividend policy appears to be more profound for highly opaque banks. We identify different conditions that motivate different discretionary behaviors of banks, which allows us to better observe different managerial motives between dividend-paying and dividend-non-paying banks. Under high information asymmetry context, there is valuably additional information conveyed by paying dividends, and it follows that the role of dividends as a means of conveying information is more pronounced. For banks subject to high agency problems, paying dividends make them to be less opaque through reducing the discretionary behaviors.


Author(s):  
Ashby Monk ◽  
Rajiv Sharma ◽  
Duncan L. Sinclair

The role of financial intermediaries has come under close scrutiny in recent times as many of the practices of these service firms have been exposed for their opaque, rent-seeking and dishonest behavior. This book questions the traditional system of Financial Capitalism by examining how beneficiary organizations such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations can reduce the inefficiencies of intermediaries in the savings-investment channel. This book argues that the large pools of long-term capital held in beneficiary organizations has not been mobilized efficiently enough into the capital-intensive long-term projects such as infrastructure, green energy, agriculture, private equity and real estate development. In particular, the book examines a new ‘collaborative’ form of investing that a large number of beneficiary organizations have started to embark on in order to address the problem of mainstream financial intermediation and achieve their long-term investment objectives. The book conceptualizes the ‘collaborative’ model of investment, drawing upon economic sociology, and emphasizes the importance for investors to build their social capital. By providing case study exemplars of collaborative vehicles such as co-investment platforms, joint ventures, and platform companies that invest in infrastructure, agriculture, private equity and real estate, the book provides useful insights for how long-term investment management might be shaped in the future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Loyeung

This study examines the choice of boutique financial advisors in mergers and acquisitions, and the consequences of this choice on deal outcomes and post-acquisition performance. Boutique advisors often specialize in a particular industry and focus exclusively on providing advice in mergers and acquisitions. The results suggest that boutique financial advisors are preferred when the deal is considered complex and when information asymmetry is high. The study finds that the benefits of hiring a boutique advisor flow to both the acquirers and the target firms. Acquiring firms benefit in terms of improved post-merger performance, while target firms benefit in terms of higher completion of value-enhancing deals and positive cumulative abnormal returns. Overall, these results provide support for the growing popularity of boutique financial advisors in the Australian market. JEL classification: G24, G34


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 151-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sònia Vives-Miró ◽  
Aaron Gutiérrez

AbstractUsing the paradigmatic example of Catalunya Banc, this paper analyses the Spanish varieties of the new financial engineering used to appropriate urban rent by home dispossession. It aims to contribute to the study of the new forms of financialization that have appeared since 2008. Particular attention is given to the role of the state, the emergence of private equity funds as global real estate owners and how this has translated into a wave of evictions due to mortgage foreclosures. In short, this article highlights the implications of the uneven development resulting from the exhaustion of the so-called Spanish model of accumulation during the real estate boom years.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bipin Sony ◽  
Saumitra Bhaduri

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to investigate the role of information asymmetry in the equity selling mechanisms chosen by the firms from an important emerging market, India. Specifically, the authors look into the choice between the two most popular mechanisms of equity issues – rights issue and private placement of equity.Design/methodology/approachThis study introduces three analyst specific variables as proxies of information asymmetry as the conventional proxies are fraught with several disadvantages. First, the paper tests the choice between rights issue and private placement using a binary logistic model. In the second approach the authors use rights issue and segregate the private placements into preferential allotments and qualified institutional placements and test the impact of information asymmetry using a multinomial logistic regression.FindingsThe outcome of this empirical exercise shows that only those firms facing lesser information problems choose rights issue of equity. Private placements are chosen by firms facing higher information problems to circumvent information costs. The results remain invariant even after segregating the qualified institutional placements from private equity placement as the firms with information disadvantage choose to place equity privately.Originality/valueIn contrast to the conventional studies that focus on the debt-equity framework, the authors argue that the impact of information asymmetry is applicable even at disaggregated levels of equity selling mechanism.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Alcock ◽  
Andrew Baum ◽  
Nicholas Colley ◽  
Eva Steiner

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