This paper utilizes a hazard model to predict the probability of leveraged buyout transactions for public firms. Rather than testing specific hypotheses, this paper incorporates all plausible predictors identified in existing literature to better delineate the effects of different characteristics. Largely confirming past results, I find that LBO transactions are more likely to occur for companies with more stable cash flows, less market visibility, lower market valuation, lower ownership concentration and lower costs of financial distress. By including LBO transactions from 1980 to September 2018, I find preliminary evidence that since the financial crisis of 2008 – 2009, private equity firms have modified their selection criteria when sourcing LBO deal targets.

<p>During the eighties a new type of financial transaction started to emerge on an increasing basis. It was the so called “leveraged buyout” also known as the LBO. In the US private equity firms made it to the headlines in financial media from engaging in leveraged buyouts with small equity investments and large amounts of borrowed capital, their targets where large solid multinational corporations. Much has happened since the eighties. Back then leveraged buyouts where often associated with terms such as “Slash and Burn” or “Buy, Flip and Strip” often meaning hostile takeovers and huge layoffs. Today private equity firms focus more on active ownership, fast decisions without the bureaucracy of the stock market and long term value creation in order to profit from their buyouts.</p><p>As private equity firms today invest tremendous amounts of capital through their private equity funds. Leveraged buyouts have become one of the major areas within investment banking. Even though the LBO is a common transaction it is often hard to find models used for valuation of such a deal. Private equity funds and investment banks all have their own valuation models but these are regarded as strictly confidential and seldom revealed to the public. Therefore the creation and publication of an LBO valuation model should be of great interest for everyone aiming at a future career within private equity, corporate finance or investment banking.</p><p>This thesis derives a complete LBO valuation model including a framework for finding a suitable LBO target. The LBO valuation model is created in cooperation with the debt capital markets department at one of the leading investment banks in the Nordic region. The framework is based on a qualitative study conducted on seven of the most distinguished private equity firms active in Sweden. In order to show how the LBO valuation model and the framework works, both are applied on the retail company Björn Borg listed on NASDAQ OMX. To verify the accuracy of the framework, calculated return from the model is analyzed and compared to the indications given by the framework.</p>

During the eighties a new type of financial transaction started to emerge on an increasing basis. It was the so called “leveraged buyout” also known as the LBO. In the US private equity firms made it to the headlines in financial media from engaging in leveraged buyouts with small equity investments and large amounts of borrowed capital, their targets where large solid multinational corporations. Much has happened since the eighties. Back then leveraged buyouts where often associated with terms such as “Slash and Burn” or “Buy, Flip and Strip” often meaning hostile takeovers and huge layoffs. Today private equity firms focus more on active ownership, fast decisions without the bureaucracy of the stock market and long term value creation in order to profit from their buyouts. As private equity firms today invest tremendous amounts of capital through their private equity funds. Leveraged buyouts have become one of the major areas within investment banking. Even though the LBO is a common transaction it is often hard to find models used for valuation of such a deal. Private equity funds and investment banks all have their own valuation models but these are regarded as strictly confidential and seldom revealed to the public. Therefore the creation and publication of an LBO valuation model should be of great interest for everyone aiming at a future career within private equity, corporate finance or investment banking. This thesis derives a complete LBO valuation model including a framework for finding a suitable LBO target. The LBO valuation model is created in cooperation with the debt capital markets department at one of the leading investment banks in the Nordic region. The framework is based on a qualitative study conducted on seven of the most distinguished private equity firms active in Sweden. In order to show how the LBO valuation model and the framework works, both are applied on the retail company Björn Borg listed on NASDAQ OMX. To verify the accuracy of the framework, calculated return from the model is analyzed and compared to the indications given by the framework.

The focus of this empirical paper is to outline and evaluate certain determinants of lever-aged buyouts (LBOs) in Europe. The paper begins by providing a detailed description of LBOs, with particular emphasis on the European markets. This allows for the development of the four determinants that are studied in greater detail, specifically interest rate, out-standing stock, anti-director rights, and creditor rights. The conclusions indicate that coun-tries with more outstanding stock have larger LBO markets since equity is more liquid in these countries. Further, the results suggest that long-run interest rate is negatively related to the size of the LBO market. The paper goes on to test whether anti-director rights and creditor rights, as developed by La Porta et al. (1998) are related to the size of the LBO markets, but no evidence is found to support this notion. It is thus concluded that deter-minants focused on financing the buyouts play the most significant role in European LBO transactions.

Recently, there are more and more literatures discuss on the issues of investment strategies of leveraged ETFs. In our works, we concentrate our issues on optimal leverage of ETF of S&P 500 index. Based on ARMA-GARCH model¡¦s assumption, we find out that the forecasting optimal leverage can be shown in a formula which contains return and characteristic function. In this paper, we use MA(1)-GARCH(1,1) to forecast volatility based on 1008 rolling window to forecast one day ahead¡¦s volatility; and our estimation time is start from 1954 to March 2011. In this paper, we present four dynamic leverage models (Normal, Student T, VG, and Best model¡¦s leverage) to find out the payoffs under these models. In our model, the forecasting accuracy is just about 55% which is slightly higher than SPX raise probability. But during long-term compound effect, the dynamic leverage models can out-perform than constant leverage. There may exist some important factors in these results, one of them is the crash forecasting ability. During 1980 to 2011 SPX has 14 big crashes and these models can effectively avoid 10 big crashes. In short-term investment horizon none of these five models are always outperform than others but in long-term investment horizon the strategy of best model¡¦s leverage can always earn money when investment horizon is 2400 days.

While the much more use of leverage could be effective in generating alpha o investment, the Kelly strategy is an attractive approach to capital creation and growth. It is originated from the Kelly criterion dubbed ¡§ fortunes formula ¡§ which maximizes the long run growth rate of wealth. There is a tradeoff of rate of return versus risk/volatility as a asymptotic function solution of leverage or position size determined by the application of EGARCH model in the different residual assumptions given by the Normal, Generalized Hyperbolic, and the Generalized Error distributions. No matter there is any timing ability in any strategy, risk management is much more important especially with many repeated trading. We present the performance and risk control of the leveraged ETFs tracked the S&P 500 index in the past ten years using optimal leverage strategy derived by the full Kelly and fraction Kelly criterion.

<p>The focus of this empirical paper is to outline and evaluate certain determinants of lever-aged buyouts (LBOs) in Europe. The paper begins by providing a detailed description of LBOs, with particular emphasis on the European markets. This allows for the development of the four determinants that are studied in greater detail, specifically interest rate, out-standing stock, anti-director rights, and creditor rights. The conclusions indicate that coun-tries with more outstanding stock have larger LBO markets since equity is more liquid in these countries. Further, the results suggest that long-run interest rate is negatively related to the size of the LBO market. The paper goes on to test whether anti-director rights and creditor rights, as developed by La Porta et al. (1998) are related to the size of the LBO markets, but no evidence is found to support this notion. It is thus concluded that deter-minants focused on financing the buyouts play the most significant role in European LBO transactions.</p>

Using private firm financial data, I compare operational improvements in public-to-private and private-to-private leveraged transactions in Western Europe between 2003 and 2010. Results are consistent with the recent literature and find operational gains to be significantly smaller then when buyouts were originally analyzed by Jensen (1989) and Kaplan (1989). Public firms experience an increase in raw EBITDA margin of 7.2 percentage points three years post-buyout, while a doubling of firm size yields an increase in EBITDA margin of 4.6 percentage points in year three post-buyout. Using industry-adjusted data, prior corporate form is positive and significant in year two post-buyout. Contrary to prior literature’s expectations, governance state does not impact increases in net profit margin or return on assets. My analysis offers support for the free cash flow theory, as the positive and significant effect of a public structure on EBITDA margin suggests that public firms have greater growth potential for private equity investors and more agency costs than their private counterparts.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2007.

This diploma thesis deals with the acquisition of companies by means of the Leveraged Buyout (LBO) method. This method differs in many respects from the standards M&A. This work examines the specific features of the given business transactions from the viewpoint of the target companies, procedures and entities involved in these transactions. As the key element of the LBO method is the debt financing of the acquisition, the work also deals with this aspect and evaluates the positions of the creditors from the viewpoint of the influence on the stability of the financial system. The thesis further analyses the question whether the LBO method has an effect leading to an increased effectiveness of processes in a company, or whether, conversely, the proceeds of acquisition investors are a consequence of a transfer of values from other entities. The text is based on available theoretical and empirical sources which are supplemented by the author's analyses.