NEWSLETTER of May 28, 2021

The following content has been added at finexpert:

Bain & Company
GLOBAL HEALTHCARE PRIVATE EQUITY AND M&A REPORT 2021
Healthcare private equity deal volume increased by 21% to a total of 380 deals in 2020, compared with 313 the year earlier, despite a 14% decline in total global PE activity. Total disclosed deal value fell 17% to $66 billion, which is robust considering the effects of Covid-19. The average size of deals with disclosed values dropped 57%, due in part to a lack of very large deals. The average declines were most pronounced in North America and Europe. For the first time, the Asia-Pacific region logged the most buyouts—41% of global deals — driven primarily by the biopharma sector. North America remained the leader for disclosed value, with 53% of global value. >more

KfW Research
GERMAN PRIVATE EQUITY BAROMETER - Q1 2021
In the wake of the coronavirus slump the recovery of business sentiment in the German private equity market recently improved only very slowly but it has now gained momentum. The sentiment indicator of the later-stage segment gained 18.7 points in the first quarter of 2021, rising to -12.2 balance points, just barely in red territory. Assessments of both the current business situation and expectations improved. The indicator for the current business situation rose by 19.4points to -15.4 balance points, while the indicator for business expectations increased by 17.9 points to -9.0 balance points. >more

Willis Towers Watson
INSTITUTIONAL ALLOCATION TO PRIVATE EQUITY: A MATURING INDUSTRY CALLS FOR A DIFFERENTIATED APPROACH
We acknowledge that the private equity industry has over time matured with fewer opportunities to grasp low hanging fruit. Average buyout returns have steadily declined over the past three decades. This calls for a differentiated approach to identify those that are able to outperform their peers. In this paper, we outline several key considerations we believe are vital in managing a successful private equity investment programme. >more

KPMG
VENTURE PULSE Q1 2021
Q1’21 saw a record nine $1 billion+ VC deals, which accounted for nearly $17 billion in global VC investment. The US accounted for the majority of these large funding rounds, including raises by Robinhood, Rivian Automotive, VillageMD, GoPuff, and Databricks. China-based Xingsheng Selected, Hong-Kong based Lalamove, and Sweden-based Klarna raised the others. The companies that raised these funding rounds represent an impressive diversity of sectors, including wealthtech, e-commerce, automotive, delivery, logistics, challenger banking, and healthcare. >more

ENTREPRENEUR DEATH AND STARTUP PERFORMANCE
Sascha O. Becker, and Hans K. Hvide
2020
How large is entrepreneurs' personal importance to startups? We use the death of nearly 1,500 entrepreneurs as a source of variation, and find large and sustained negative effects on growth and profitability. For small startups, the effects go mainly via firm survival, while for larger startups the effects are mainly on firm growth. For larger startups, the mean effect on sales is about 50 percent. The effects appear to be driven by entrepreneur specialness rather than leadership transition; the effects of death of entrepreneur-managers is economically and statistically stronger than the death of managers that are not entrepreneurs. >more

THE DOLLAR PROFITS TO INSIDER TRADING
Peter Cziraki, and Jasmin Gider
2021
This paper studies insider trading quantities and dollar profits to measure the benefits insiders extract from their superior information. Dollar profits are economically small for a typical insider, the median insider earning $464 per year. The correlation between dollar profits and percentage returns is moderate, because returns are negatively correlated with trade size and frequency. We show that these correlations vary with proxies for insider preferences, firm-level monitoring, and regulatory scrutiny. As a consequence, variables that predict percentage returns fail to predict dollar profits, and past dollar profits are negatively related to future returns. Our work suggests that dollar profits are a better measure for corporate governance applications of insider trading. >more