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On private equity exits of family firms in the German Mittelstand

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Abstract

There is limited existing research on factors influencing the preferences of family firms’ owner-managers for specific modes of external transitions of ownership such as private equity. In a multi-method approach, this study qualitatively gathers the attitudinal beliefs of family firms’ owner-managers about pursuing the private equity succession route. Four classes of beliefs are identified: perceptions of (1) firm continuance; (2) opportunities for firm development; (3) loss of firm ethos; and (4) commercial firm risks. These classes are then tested quantitatively with a sample of 195 family firm owner-managers among the German Mittelstand. Our results partially confirm the qualitative findings: the perception of positive development opportunities and the perception of commercial firm risks explain owner-managers’ intention to pursue a private equity succession, mediated through attitude. Overall, attitude emerges as the cornerstone in this context-specific intention model.

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Notes

  1. Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) indicate that a qualitative study to elicit belief statements should cover between 20 and 50 subjects. Terpstra and Olson (1993) selected 35 subjects to develop a classification scheme.

  2. Schulze et al. (2003) propose minimum annual revenues of USD 1 million to eliminate lifestyle businesses, and Achleitner et al. (2008) consider annual revenues of EUR 20 million to be at the lower end of deal sizes in which PE firms are likely to engage. We conclude from expert interviews that PE firms also pursue micro-buy-outs of firms with annual revenues of EUR 5 million, especially in the context of venture-capital firms.

  3. Indicators were only deleted in the intention scale (Thompson 2009). This scale includes both reverse-coded items and distraction items. Feedback from the pre-test clearly pointed to the deletion of these items in order not to confuse and confuse respondents and increase the risk of an unsatisfactory response rate.

  4. Accordingly, an analysis done by the German Institute for SME research (IfM) in 2006 found that, out of 970 German PE transactions in 2006, only 61 were structured as family firm dispositions.

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  1. Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group (WIN), TIME Research Area, RWTH Aachen University, Kackertstr. 7, 52072, Aachen, Germany

    Florian Kreer, Steffen Strese & Malte Brettel

  2. Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, ESCP Europe, Heubnerweg 8-10, 14059, Berlin, Germany

    René Mauer

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  1. Florian Kreer
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Kreer, F., Mauer, R., Strese, S. et al. On private equity exits of family firms in the German Mittelstand. J Bus Econ 88, 503–529 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-017-0870-8

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