Private Equity Acquisitions of Bankrupt Firms in the United States and Germany

Diploma Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,7, LMU Munich, 110 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In early December, 2004, German newspapers reported the acquisition of bankruptautomotive supplier Peguform GmbH, based in Bötzingen, by U.S. private equityinvestor Cerberus Capital Management1. The transaction was announced 30 monthsafter Peguform, a company with more than 5,000 employees that recorded EUR 1.4billion in revenues in 20032, had filed for bankruptcy. As it involved a large firm withsubstantial importance for Germany s core automotive industry, this transactionshone a spotlight on a sector of the private equity business that has not yet beenwidely recognized in Germany: investments in bankrupt firms. While traditionalprivate equity buyouts of financially stable firms have become more and morecommonplace in Germany in recent years3, little attention has been devoted to theniche of transactions at the corporate cycle s very end. In the United States, incontrast, private equity funds investing in bankrupt firms constitute a well-establishedpart of the financial markets.In this thesis, I aim at providing an overview of the most important aspectsconcerning private equity acquisitions of bankrupt firms, both in the United Statesand Germany. This comprises an analysis of the institutional framework for suchacquisitions, an investigation of the transaction process and the management ofacquired businesses, a closer look at the actual market for these transactions and itsdevelopment in recent years, and two case studies for practical insight and validationof the findings.