2013 BVA Essay Award Winner
Since 2007, the Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association vzw/asbl (BVA) grants its annual BVA Essay Award in co-operation with Deloitte. In its 7th year, the BVA Essay Award for best essay about the venture capital & private equity industry went to Enrique Martinez of HEC©ULg.
The winning essay was presented for the degree of Master in Management Sciences at HEC©ULg (Year 2010-2011) under the direction of Professor Séverine Plunus and investigates the impact of working capital management in creating value in companies after their leveraged buyout through private equity investment.
The particular form of a Leveraged Buyout, company takeovers by using a high level of borrowed debt, has intrigued the academic world and has been the subject of many studies. Among other things, it has been demonstrated that companies under leveraged buyout enjoy greater growth, better operational performance and profitability. The impact of working capital management on LBOs has been studied on other markets, namely the United States and United Kingdom, but these are showing different characteristics than our Belgian credit oriented market.
The aim of this dissertation is to analyse whether the working capital in Belgian companies is managed better after having completed a leveraged buyout than before, whereby the link is made to the management of the working capital with some performance indicators of LBOs.
After having developed research hypotheses, these were tested empirically with a sample of 34 Belgian companies having completed an LBO between 2002 and 2007. The outcome of the analytical model reveals that LBOs manage working capital better after the transaction than before. Regarding the specifics of the working capital management and the performance of LBOs, the results show that value is created by reducing working capital through reducing the number of days of outstanding receivables and by increasing the number of days of outstanding payables. A specific impact on the number of outstanding inventory days was not noticed.
The results of the study contribute to the literature on the valuation relevance of buyouts backed by private equity investments.
Through this award, the BVA and Deloitte wish to stimulate the academic research about venture capital (VC) en private equity (PE). This should lead to a better understanding of the discipline and its added value to society especially for entrepreneurs, employees, works councils and various governmental organizations.
The BVA-Jury in 2013, that consisted of Prof. Em. Charles Van Wymeersch, Prof. Em. Dirk Heremans and five representatives of the private equity and venture capital industry, received three essays this year.
The essay of Enrique Martinez was selected based upon four scoring criteria:
1. Academic Quality: For the careful literature analysis and formulation of research hypotheses leading to the formulation of testable hypotheses.
2. Originality: Relevant analysis on original Belgian data, whereby the influence of Working Capital behaviour as a result of LBO is not often investigated
3. Accessibility: Easy to read, well written, very understandable for methodology and hypotheses.
4. Usefulness for the industry: Excellent sense of usability of research results and relevance for company practice, after LBO working capital gets better managed.
To read the winning essay, written by Mr. Enrique Martinez, please click here.
To read the essays by Mr. Rodheudt and Ms. De Loor, please click on their name.
2012 BVA Essay Award Winners
For the 6th time, the Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (BVA) granted its BVA Essay Award in cooperation with Deloitte and for the first time in collaboration with CeFiP/KeFiK, the Belgian Knowledge Centre for SME Financing.
Through this award, the BVA sponsored by CeFiP/KeFiK and Deloitte, wish to stimulate the academic research into private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC). This year, the BVA Essay Award was granted to two winning essays.
The winning essay “The selection criteria used by Venture Capitalists to evaluate new investment proposals – A comparative study of Public and Private Players in Belgium” sponsored by CeFiP/KeFiK, was presented by Ms Danièle Müllender for the Master Degree in Management Sciences at the HEC-ULg Liege (Academic year 2010-2011) under the supervision of Professor Dr. Maurice Olivier.
Mr. Jens Verhiest and Mr Thomas Viaene presented the winning essay “Empiric study of the relationship between shareholder-syndicates and financial debt syndication in a Leverage Buy-Out”for the Master degree in Applied Economics at the University Gent (Year 2010-2011) and was written under the supervision of Professor Dr. Miguel Meuleman. The essay – sponsored by Deloitte – received the highest score for its academic quality and originality. This essay was considered a very useful study for investors and debt providers involved in LBO transactions.
2011 BVA Essay Award Winner
The Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (BVA) granted its BVA Essay Award for the 5th time, in co-operation with Deloitte.
This year, the award for best essay about the Private Equity and Venture Capital industry went to Ms Annelore Huyghe of the Universiteit Gent, Economics and Business Administration, with her dissertation “The importance of protection ability as a selection criterion for Venture Capitalists”, under the direction of Professor Dr. Mirjam Knockaert.
The winning essay was presented for the degree of Master in Applied Economics at the UGent (Year 2009-2010) and investigates the different selection criteria for venture capitalists, in particular the importance of the protection of Intellectual Property by patents.
2010 BVA Essay Award Winner
The Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (BVA) granted its BVA Essay Award for the 4th time, in co-operation with Deloitte.
This year, the award for best essay about the Private Equity and Venture Capital industry went to Vivian Mathieu of the Louvain School of Management, Université Catholique de Louvain, with his dissertation submitted for the degree of Master in Business Engineering “Value creation in Private Equity backed Buyouts”, and this under the direction of Professor Armin Schwienbacher.
The winning essay was presented for the degree of Master in Business Engineering at the UCL (Year 2008-2009) and investigates the different drivers creating value in companies after their buyout through Private Equity investment.
2009 BVA Essay Award Winner
This year, the award for best essay about the Venture Capital - Private Equity industry went to Pieterjan Behaeghe and Tim Delameilleure of the University of Ghent. The authors were granted the prize money for their essay “Determinants of the Valuation of Venture Capital Transactions”.
The winning essay was presented for the Master degree in Applied Economics at the University of Ghent (Year 2007-2008) and investigates in detail which elements determined the valuation at the time of entry of Venture Capital in new and innovative companies. The paper is the outcome of an intensive research whereby 126 Venture Capital transactions In Belgium, UK, France and Germany, were analysed.
The essay confirms by statistical methods that Venture Capitalists rate a higher value to companies in high technology sectors, and this in correlation to their higher incurred costs (losses) and their growth. Also larger companies, in Assets and Net Book Value, score relatively higher in their valuation.
2008 BVA Essay Award Winner
The jury selected as winner of the BVA Essay award 2008: "De rol van Venture Capital in het groeipad van early stage high tech ondernemingen" (Essay to qualify for the grade of Master in Applied Economics, University of Gent). Please click the hyperlink above to view the winning thesis of 2008.
Author: Annelies Bobelyn
The main conclusions of the winning thesis were that:
- companies that received VC showed a higher growth in number of employees, total assets and turnover (if financing was done by a large or super sized fund)
- companies that did not receive VC, showed a higher growth in P&L and cashflow
- these effects were often enhanced by the size of the investment fund.
2007 BVA Essay Award Winner
For the first BVA Essay Award, the BVA received six valid essays which passed the selection criteria. The members of the jury consisted of two Academic Members (professors Th. Peeters and J.-P. Couvreur) and three Industry Members (Hilde Famaey, André-Xavier Cooreman and Ludo Verbist), whereby the jury’s Chairman was André-Xavier Cooreman, chairman of the BVA.
The jury selected as winner of the BVA Essay award 2007: "The Performance of Business Angel backed companies" (Essay to qualify for the grade of Master in Applied Economics, University of Gent). Please click the hyperlink to view the winning thesis of 2007.
Author: Frank Ceenaeme
The main conclusion of this essay is that no real –positive - difference could be noticed in performance between BA companies and NBA companies, except that many BA companies would not have existed without Business Angels’ financing.