Investigating performance implications of intra‐family ownership successions: Equity transfers with versus without debt creation

Ellen Janssen, Sigrid Vandemaele, Wim Voordeckers and Mark Vancauteren

Accounting and Finance, 2024, vol. 64, issue 1, 635-656

Abstract: We relate two routes of intra‐family ownership succession (i.e., succession financed with versus without debt) to post‐succession financial performance. Investigating a sample of 203 privately‐held family businesses, our results show that the succession‐induced performance paths of the two subgroups are significantly different. When debt is used to fund the intra‐family share transfer, financial performance significantly increases in the post‐succession period. This phenomenon is absent when no debt is used to fund succession. We attribute the performance gap to a governance device characterising the debt‐financed succession route: debt creation at succession leads to firm‐level efficiency gains.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/acfi.13157

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:64:y:2024:i:1:p:635-656

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0810-5391

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting and Finance is currently edited by Robert Faff

More articles in Accounting and Finance from Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().