Project 1.1.4 : OO

Project Team

Prof. Sophie Manigart (project leader) and Bivas Bose as of 1/12/2007

Content

The takeover of companies is important in Flanders, as it is estimated that 45% of the entrepreneurs of independent or family companies are more than 50 years old, while 49% of all Belgian family firms have been contacted at least once to sell their company during the last three years (Barometer 2006 van Familiale Ondernemingen). In order to study the take-over process from both the point of view of the acquiror and of the acquiree, a longitudinal database will be constructed. We will take care to include as well independent (family) businesses as divisions of large companies that have been taken over.

Methodology

First, a database with a representative sample of takeovers in Flanders will be put together. This effort has started in 2007 and will be repeated yearly. We will take care to include companies of different size classes, pretakeover ownership structures, sectors, age, buyouts or not, … We will identify the takeovers by monitoring publicly available information (journals, internet, the Bureau Van Dijk database with financial accounts of Belgian companies,…). We will invest in the Zephyr database, that identifies European deals. We further cooperate with organizations such as CMBOR, who monitor (management) buy-outs in Europe. We will supplement these data with data from the financial accounts of both companies, retrieved from the ISF database.