|
Abstract:
|
The present dissertation focuses on the role of direct public intervention in the Italian
private equity industry. Firstly, this work aims to explain why the public sector has
looked with increasing interest at the private equity activity, providing at the same
time a descriptive picture of the direct public intervention extent in the Italian private
equity industry. Secondly, this study tries to identify what affects the performance
(IRR) of public participated investors in order to explain why, during the period 1998-
2009, it has been significantly lower than that of independent players. Through a
double-level analysis on the whole PEM database 2009 and on a sample of Public
participated investors, the findings suggest that the lower “Professionalization” of
public participated investors’ management teams has played a key role in driving
their poor financial returns. The investment team “Professionalization” has been
found to be positively related to performance, while the “Experience” within the
private equity industry has provided controversial results. Moreover, the financial
returns of Public participated investors’ turned out to be significantly influenced by the
ratio between public and private funds provided to run the investment activity, but not
by the private equity investor’ shareholder structure.
The final part of this work poses questions on whether the IRR approach is still
appropriate to assess the performance of public participated investors, and, in this
regard, an alternative method is proposed in order to extend the evaluation of private
equity investment deals beyond a mere financial perspective. |
