25 May 2023

Connecting with the academic community

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Suzi Gillespie, Head of Research, and Ewa Skornas, Research Manager, share their thoughts on two recent premier academic research conferences in Oxford and London.

Understanding, analysing and explaining the private capital industry is the core mission of the BVCA research team. Alongside the BVCA’s in-house research and externally commissioned reports, the team is keen to tap into the great work being done by others, including in the academic research community.

There is no better place to hear about new research on private equity and venture capital and build connections among the academic community than at leading private equity research conferences and May presented us with two great opportunities.


Oxford, then London

On May 11-12, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and the Institute for Private Capital hosted the Spring Private Equity Research Symposium, bringing together scholars and industry professionals across the world to share latest research on private capital markets.

Only a few days later, the team attended the Private Capital Symposium at London Business School (LBS), headlined as ‘Opportunities for private capital in challenging times’. Leading academics and practitioners engaged for two days of inspiring and thought–provoking discussions on industry trends and developments. Topics ranged from private debt, family office partnerships, democratisation of private equity investments, to venture capital and technology investing.

Research topics that were presented at both academic conferences varied greatly and included corporate governance, the impact of venture capital on innovation, performance of private equity owned companies during economic crises, the effects of trade barriers on country level investment decisions and the dynamics between manager skill and capital allocation within PE firms.


What was learnt?

The LBS conference was kicked off by Pascal Böni from Tilburg University who presented some fascinating data on the growth of private debt markets, showing that global private debt funds are now of a similar size to other major markets such as quoted US high yield bonds. He also explored the drivers behind why businesses have increased their borrowing from non-banks.

One of the most interesting academic papers presented at the Oxford conference was the research on the performance of UK private equity portfolio companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, conducted by Paul Lavery from the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow and Nick Wilson from Leeds University Business School. The research found that PE-backed companies outperformed their non-PE backed peers during the economic crises caused by COVID-19. They saw higher growth in sales, assets and employment and other key performance indicators in 2020 and 2021 compared to non-sponsored companies.

Turning to venture capital research, Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe from London School of Economics presented her latest preliminary research on the broader impact of venture capital on innovation. She argued that VC investors appear to add value to start-ups during the investment due diligence process, even if they decide not to invest in them.


Continuing to connect

The research team is keen to do more to connect with and learn from the wider research community of both academics and practitioners. If you are organising a research conference, or have private equity or venture capital research you would like to share, please get in touch.

 

Suzi Gillespie, Head of Research, BVCA
and Ewa Skornas, Research Manager, BVCA


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