We study the performance of PE-backed companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that, on average, PE-backed firms were more resilient compared to closely matched industry peers during the pandemic. However, this outperformance is of a smaller magnitude than during the pre-pandemic non-crisis period, suggesting that the outperformance is driven by investor selection of target firms ex ante, rather than active support mechanisms. The outperformance during the pandemic is found to be insignificant among firms which were the most vulnerable at the onset of the pandemic, and firms in the most exposed industries. These more vulnerable firms appear to have been less active in obtaining additional financing during the pandemic, and consequently, suffered a significantly higher incidence of distress. However, non-PE-backed firms in distress had a higher incidence of liquidation, while PE-owned firms more often negotiated formally with creditors to continue trading. Our analysis shines light on the role of PE investors during a large, exogenous shock, and suggests that, in the case of the pandemic, their adept target selection may help to explain the outperformance more so than their actions to protect vulnerable firms in a crisis.

This paper examines whether private equity (PE)-backed companies are better able to remain active on export markets compared to similar non-PE firms, when hit by a negative shock. We look at two such recent shocks, namely the global financial crisis (GFC) and COVID-19 pandemic. We construct two matched samples, one for each crisis period, to assess the resilience of exporting under PE ownership in recessionary periods. We then explore how improvements in working capital management allow PE-backed firms to engage in international activities and maintain their export relationships relative to similar, non-PE-backed firms. Our results show that the export activities of PE-backed firms are significantly more resilient to the effects of the GFC but less pronounced following COVID-19. PE investment enhances working capital management, which in turn improves the persistence in export markets at the onset of the crises.