This article shows that publicly available data on buyout fund returns are sufficient to replicate the recent findings derived from superior but proprietary datasets. The average buyout fund outperforms the S&P 500. However, this study shows that buyout funds mainly invest in small and value companies; and the average buyout fund return is similar to that of small-cap indices and that of the oldest small-cap passive mutual fund (“DFA micro-cap”). If the benchmark is changed to small and value indices, and is levered up, the average buyout fund underperforms by 3.1% p.a.

This paper shows that some of the most prominent risk-based theories offered as explanation for the value premium are at odds with data. The models proposed by Fama and French (1993), Lettau and Ludvingson (2001), Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004), and Yogo (2006) can capture the cross-section of returns of portfolios sorted on book-to-market ratio and size, but not of portfolios sorted on book-to-market ratio and institutional ownership. These models generate economically large pricing errors in all the institutional ownership quintiles and each statistical test indicates that these pricing errors are significant. More generally, these results show that a minor alteration of the test assets can lead to a dramatically different answer regarding the validity of a given asset pricing model.

Target acquisitiveness stands out as one of the primary drivers of all the key aspects of the market for corporate takeovers: acquisition announcement returns, probability of deal success, propensity to acquire and be acquired. Acquisitive targets, though a small proportion of the sample, are responsible for half of the overall negative acquisition announcement returns. Our large body of empirical evidence consistently supports the view that the motivation behind acquisitions of acquisitive targets is defensive: acquirers “eat in order not to be eaten”.