When registering, please specify if you plan to attend online or in person.
AGENDA
The agenda consists of the following items:
- What does Pitchbook offer to practitioners and academics?
- In what way may different disciplines within our School benefit and what are possible interesting research domains and questions?
- What does an interesting exemplary research project that uses Pitchbook look like?
- How can we support implementing your research project?
PART 1: WHAT DOES PITCHBOOK OFFER?
By Tiran Patel, Pitchbook
Value of PitchBook
This section of the workshop outlines the value that Pitchbook offers to both practitioners and to academics. There are several client groups that rely on Pitchbook for transaction and investment decisions:
- PE and other asset managers: Deal origination, transaction analysis, industry analysis, portfolio management, investor sourcing, fund performance analysis, data for marketing activities, Link to full guide
- Corporations: M&A: Due diligence, origination and transaction analysis, Innovation/partnering tracking specific industries, IP/clinical trials information, PitchBook research reports. Corporate strategy: competitive insights, market analysis by sector/region, Link to full guide
Research process
USP of PitchBook is a) Advanced technology used to gather information. B) Relationships with private market participants providing data to us c) Accuracy and robustness of data d) Breadth and depth of private company and fund data, Link to research process
Data available to Warwick university
All global PE and M&A transactions. All associated: Companies, transactions, Investors, lenders, funds, Limited partners, people. Accessed via internal datasite. (Deirdre/Koen to provide more information on this)
PART 2: WHAT IS THE UTILITY OF PITCHBOOK TO DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES?
By Koen Heimeriks, Warwick Business School
This part looks at what research opportunities Pitchbook may offer to different disciplines and research streams in our School. While Pitchbook offers one entry point as a database, it has significant potential to bolster and deepen research insight on different topics across different fields of study. In terms of exiting literature, there is work in finance and economics that uses Pitchbook for their work. Literature has used Pitchbook to complement primary data on how the overlap of partners can impact exit routes (Degeorge, Martin & Phalippou, 2016). Similar work investigates how the individual level characteristics of the PE managers impacts the likelihood of increased performance (Fuchs, Fuss, Jenkinson & Morkoetter, 2022). While initially used to supplement other sources, the use of Pitchbook has also increased in entrepreneurship work (Anwar, Covielle & Rouziou, 2021; De Prijcker, Manigart, Collewaert & Vanacker, 2019).
This has recently transitioned in very recent strategic management and strategic entrepreneurship work. Work has examined the extreme valuations of private companies, to look at how media attention amplifies the variations in speed at which their valuations change over time (Kotha, Shin & Fisher, 2022). In strategy, venture capital funds have been look at in relation their exit strategies and routes, to investigate the kinds of exit pressures that board collaborations instigate within their governance structures, causing hazards of specific exit routes (Yao & O'Neill, 2022). International Business research has taken up Pitchbook to delineate the differences in the types of investors, in terms of their governance and acquisition strategies (Cumming & Zhang, 2019). Pitchbook is now being utilised in additional top journals as the Journal of Business Ethics, to examine how reporting frequency is associated with information asymmetries, meaning that the less reporting of performance impacts subsequent decision-making between private equity partners (Johan & Zhang, 2021).
In relation to how Pitchbook compares with competitors, it is a relatively new entrant to the data landscape – in terms of competitors, the main options are Preqin, Cambridge Associates and Burgiss (Harris, Jenkinson & Kaplan, 2016; Haltiwanger, Miranda & Schoar, 2017). Pitchbook is the most recent addition to the arena, with a deeper focus on private equity performance, while the others look more at venture capital (Haltiwanger et al., 2017). Thomson Venture Economics was another option which has been discontinued due to poor quality data.
In terms of similarity, the most consistent in terms of the cover and type of data is Burgiss, whereby both Pitchbook and Burgiss collect their data quantitatively and qualitatively, while alternatives usually go with one or the other. Preqin and Pitchbook both rely on Freedom of Information Act requests from public pension investors, as these must be reported, and most public pension investors are the investors of the large buyout funds. Additionally, Preqin and Pitchbook are the only major sources that identify General Partners by name and offer the performance of individual funds, meaning that the data can be verified and is offered transparently (Haltiwanger, et al., 2017). Preqin and Pitchbook both have a fee-paying model, whereby LPs and GPs subscribe and report their own information (Brown, Harris, Jenkinson, Kaplan & Robinson, 2015). Both collect a wide range of public data, on PE to create their reports, but also utilise the information requests, as these require LPs and GPs to voluntarily give information (Brown, et al., 2015).
Thus, Pitchbook offers the opportunity for unique and likely unbiased data (Harris, Jenkinson & Kaplan, 2016). Research has begun to take up Pitchbook more in venture capital and PE work, where historically the research has been segmented based on particular data, with Thompson being heavily utilised, however finance work has begun to look at Pitchbook more regularly (Cumming & Johan, 2017; Johan & Zhang, 2016).
PART 3. USING PITCHBOOK IN AN EXCITING RESEARCH PROJECT
By Deirdre Coveney
Go through the work we have been doing:
- Types of research questions we have been doing
- Types of variables that we have been using
Explain the different types of levels:
- Individual – information on the individuals on the TMTs and board of PE firms
- Deal – M&As, divestments, PE investments
- Fund – background on the owning funds
- Firm – Target Firms, and investors (both acquiror and divestor)
- Limited Partner – information on the silent investors of PE investments
PART 4. HOW CAN WE SUPPORT YOUR PROJECT?
By Sean Enderby
Accessing the data:
- Online Using CloudBeaver
- From a Programming Language (e.g. Python, R, Stata)
Querying the Data Using SQL.
Assistance with programming for data analysis.