Sathya Vijayakumar, PhD Candidate, The Wharton School
Abstract: Private equity has become an increasingly active player in technology acquisitions in recent years, yet most prior scholarship has focused on the effects of corporate acquirer ownership on performance and innovation outcomes. As a result, research provides little guidance on how firms should choose between the two acquirer types. To remedy this gap, I construct a panel data set of acquisitions in the chemical, biopharmaceutical, and medical device industries between 1990 and 2019, tracked yearly through 2022. Then, I examine how private equity and corporate acquirers differentially affect product innovation at acquired technology targets using USPTO trademark, FDA orange book, and hand-collected new product introduction data. Our results illuminate the opportunities and tradeoffs facing managers at technology companies in choosing between private equity and corporate acquirers.