Value creation through European equity carve-outs

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Over the past two decades, equity carve-outs (ECOs) have become an increasingly popular form of corporate restructuring in Europe. Individual business segments are separated from the parent conglomerate company, and a minority stake is listed on the stock exchange. The parent company thus retains economic control over the subsidiary, while simultaneously creating more transparency for capital markets, restructuring its investment portfolio and creating the option to either reintegrate or completely sell off the subsidiary at a later stage. The attractiveness of ECOs as research objects is largely due to their dualistic nature as both means of parent company financing and corporate restructuring. While comprehensive academic literature on ECOs already exists, studies mainly focus on the US market. The objective of the present study is to conduct corresponding analyses using a European sample, allowing the examination of both research issues on an intra-European level, and of the admissibility of analogies between US and European results.