Si les fonds souverains ne sont pas nouveaux, leur nombre et leur pouvoir financier n’ont cessé de croître depuis le début des années 2000, suscitant de nombreuses inquiétudes, notamment dans les pays développés. Les fonds souverains sont-ils guidés par les mêmes motivations que les investisseurs institutionnels ? Leur pouvoir financier risque-t-il de déstabiliser les marchés? Ces interrogations ont fait des fonds souverains un thème de recherche à part entière dans lequel s’inscrit ce travail de recherche. Le premier essai de cette thèse contribue à identifier les principaux facteurs susceptibles d’inciter un pays à créer un fonds souverain. En outre, les stratégies d’investissement des fonds souverains suscitent de nombreuses interrogations : poursuivent-ils un objectif de rendement financier ou ont-ils des objectifs plus stratégiques? Le deuxième essai met en évidence la complexité du processus de décision des fonds souverains en testant s’ils préfèrent investir dans des pays qui leurs sont familiers et/ou dans des pays dans lesquels ils ont déjà investi par le passé. Dans le prolongement de cette analyse, le troisième essai s’intéresse plus spécifiquement aux déterminants des prises de participations majoritaires des fonds souverains en se focalisant sur un groupe de fonds particulièrement actifs : les fonds des Pays du Golfe. Plus précisément, cette analyse vise à identifier les facteurs qui influencent la décision de prendre le contrôle dans une entreprise donnée. / If Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are not new, their number and their financial power have grown sharply since the beginning of the 2000's, which raise concerns, particularly among developed countries. Are SWFs' motives comparable to other institutional investors'? May SWFs investments destabilize financial markets? These concerns have encouraged researchers to investigate the issues raised by SWFs and it has now become a subject of research in its own rights. This thesis is in line with this literature. The first essay of this thesis identifies the main factors driving the decision to establish a fund. Moreover, investment decisions of SWFs are not well understood yet. Are SWFs investments driven by the search for financial profits or do they pursue more strategic objectives? The second essay highlights the complexity of the investment decision-making process of SWFs, testing if they rather invest in countries with which they share common characteristics and/or in countries where they have already invested. In line with this second essay, the third essay analyzes more specifically the determinants of majority acquisitions made by SWFs by focusing on some particularly active funds: Gulf Countries' SWFs. More precisely, this analysis aims at identifying both microeconomic and macroeconomic factors driving the decision to acquire a majority stake in a cross-border firm.

Venture capital (VC), a historically American industry, has been in the process of globalizing in recent years. International venture capital flows (investing outside of one’s own country) have grown substantially over the past 30 years and even more dramatically in just the past decade. Previous research has mostly highlighted the determinants of where capital flows. However, research on the factors in a VC’s home country that affect investments abroad has been underdeveloped. To address this gap, this paper explores the impact of home country economic conditions on VCs’ propensity to invest abroad. I find that higher interest rates and economic wellbeing in a country (as measured by GDP growth and stock market capitalization to GDP) are associated with less deal flow abroad and, that higher foreign exchange rates are related to greater deal flow. I also note an interesting divergence in the role of these factors between VCs located in countries that exhibit different levels of international investing experience. My research indicates that VCs’ home country economic conditions do play a role in their decisions to invest abroad and suggests that these considerations may be different depending on the experience level of the VC industry in the firm’s country.

This cumulative dissertation aims to complement existing literature with insights on two topics gaining strong importance in the Private Equity Industry: 1) cross-border investments and 2) co-investments with portfolio firm management in times of uncertainty. Results in paper on cross-border investments suggest that the physical presence of a local office of PE firms can actually make a difference for foreign investments. With a local office, operating performance of PE firms is higher after the buyouts. Local offices are especially beneficial for performance the higher the perceived foreignness between PE firm and portfolio firm is. In addition, PE firms increase deal flow after a local office opening, do less syndicates and have higher deal volumes. Respective results imply it is worth in future research to differentiate between pure cross-border deals and deals operated through a local office. The forth paper sheds light on the positive relationship between management buyouts (MBOs) and economic policy uncertainty. Analyses indicate that access to information is a relevant channel for higher propensity of MBOs in uncertain times.:1 Introduction 1.1 Trends in private equity industry 1.2 Overview of essays 2 The Cross-Border Buyout Next Door 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Theoretical background 2.3 Data 2.4 Operating performance results 2.5 Insights from semi-structured interviews 2.6 Conclusion 3 Opening a Local Office - PE Firms' Engine for International Expansion? 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Theoretical background 3.3 Sample and data 3.4 Determinants of office openings 3.5 Impact of local offices 3.6 Conclusion 3.A Appendices 4 Entrepreneurial Activity in Times of Uncertainty: The Case of Management Buyouts 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Literature review and hypotheses 4.3 Material and methods 4.4 Results and discussion 4.5 Conclusions 4.A Appendices References