Changing the Nexus: The Evolution and Renegotiation of Venture Capital Contracts

Ola Bengtsson and Berk A. Sensoy
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Berk A. Sensoy: Ohio State University

Working Paper Series from Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics

Abstract: We study empirically how financial contracts evolve and are renegotiated as venture capital (VC)-backed companies secure new rounds of financing. Because VC contract designs vary considerably between companies according to their economic circumstances, it is plausible to expect that the contracts governing successive financing rounds of a quickly-evolving company should often be dissimilar. The data offer little support for this intuitive hypothesis. In fact, the majority of cash flow provisions in a new round contract are recycled from the previous round contract, even when the company has evolved substantially. Such recycling may be beneficial in typical situations because it alleviates information problems in negotiations and reduces the complexity of the company's nexus of financial contracts (Fama, 1980). However, in some situations restructuring contract design may be necessary to entice investors to provide new capital. Consistent with debt overhang arguments (Myers, 1977), we show that venture capital contracts evolve to include more investor-friendly cash flow provisions when the valuation of the company has not increased since the previous round, when new investors join the new round, or when new round investors hold larger debt-like claims. Although major renegotiations of previous round contracts are rare, minor renegotiations appear to be more common and almost uniformly result in making the previous round contract more similar to the new round contract. Overall, our findings suggest that the tradeoff relevant for changing a company's nexus of financial contracts is different from the tradeoffs relevant for the initial structuring of this nexus.

Date: 2009-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent
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Journal Article: Changing the Nexus: The Evolution and Renegotiation of Venture Capital Contracts (2015)
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