Employee Views of Leveraged Buy-Out Transactions

A large sample of employee reviews shows a decline in satisfaction after a Leveraged Buy-Out (LBO), but with significant heterogeneity. The key driver is the previous ownership structure. For Private-to-Private transactions, dissatisfaction is concentrated in non-management employees and comes mostly from how management treats them. In Public-to-Private transactions, the dissatisfaction is stronger, multi-faceted, and present for all employees, including management. Industry and Private Equity sponsor fixed effects are significant, but second order. Other ownership changes (M&A, IPO) trigger less dissatisfaction.

Keywords: ESG, big data, crowdsourcing, private equity, buyout, mergers & acquisitions

JEL Classification: G30, G34, G28, G50, I31, J21, J24, J31, J32

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Lambert, Marie and Moreno, Nicolas and Phalippou, Ludovic and Scivoletto, Alexandre, Employee Views of Leveraged Buy-Out Transactions (June 1, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3926300 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3926300