For this reason, the case studies are in majority based on interviews with people that were involved with the FB at the time it cooperated with the PE firm.

Appendix I: Case studies interviews

This study uses three case studies to explore the inner workings of a cooperation between FB and PE. The subjects of these case studies are small FB with between 10 and 100 employees.

In line with Flören’s (2002) findings, it is difficult to gather information about these businesses as they do not publish annual reports and are often overlooked by newspapers and business journals.

For this reason, the case studies are in majority based on interviews with people that were involved with the FB at the time it cooperated with the PE firm.

The goal was to speak to a representative from both the FB and the PE firm to include both points of view in the case study. This was impossible in the Endura case, as the old owner was unavailable for an interview, although this is made up for by the presence of various articles about the specific case. The case study interviews are semi-structured around a list of topics to be discussed and conducted in real life. These interviews are conducted in cooperation with my co- intern in order to have one person taking notes while the other concentrated on the structure and content of the interview. This way, the notes and experiences could be combined and compared which helped to better extract and use the information from the interview. This information was processed to construct a story-like structured case study, which was further enhanced and detailed with additional information from annual reports and available articles.

As the interviewees can be separated between FB and PE point of views, each with its specific profile, the interviews were conducted with the use of two different, although similar topic lists. Below are examples of the topic lists for both FB and PE interviewees in the case studies.

FB point of view

• Introduction

- Brief introduction of the interviewer and this study - Explanation of the interview’s goal and structure

- Brief introduction of the interviewee and the organization he or she works for

• History of the business

- Origins and development of the business - Involvement of the family

- Performance and value development

• Contact with PE firm

- Reasons to consider an exit

2 - Available alternatives

- Reasons to consider/select PE firm

- Business transfer-> process and potential traps

• After the sale - Exit of the family

- Contact with the former FB - Evaluation of the sale

PE firm point of view

• Introduction

- Brief introduction of the interviewer and this study - Explanation of the interview’s goal and structure

- Brief introduction of the interviewee and the organization he or she works for

• First contact with the case subject - Prior history of the business

- Decision to invest in the specific business - Owner’s reasons for sale FB

• Investment in the case subject

- Business transfer->process and potential traps - MBO/MBI -> profile candidate

- Round off-> exit of the family

• Management of the former FB - First steps after take-over - Changes in the organization

- Role of the PE firm compared to role MBO/MBI candidate - Performance and value development

• Potential exit of the PE firm

- Current status and future plans

- Goals and expectations of the exit

- Future of the portfolio firm

- Evaluation of the investment

3 Appendix II: Expert interviews

This study uses interviews with various experts on FB and PE to verify and discuss the case study results. Moreover, the combination of these interviews, the case studies and the existing academic literature on FB and PE helps to explore the cooperation between FB and PE and formulate propositions for future studies. Lastly, these interviews also helped to get more all- round, detailed and practical insight in the topic of this research. The interviews are semi- structured around a list of topics to be discussed and conducted in real life with a few exceptions of experts who were only available by phone or email. The interviews are conducted in cooperation with my co-intern in order to have one person taking notes while the other concentrated on the structure and content of the interview. As the cooperation between FB and PE is relatively new, many of the experts on the former did not posses a detailed insight in the latter and visas versa. The topic list for the interviews was therefore adjusted to the specific level of expertise of the interviewees. In the interviews with FB experts for example, the conversation was mainly focused on FB although PE was discussed as well, in particular in combination with FB.

Nevertheless, the interviews shared a similar structure and topic list, which is presented below.

• Introduction

- Brief introduction of the interviewer and this study - Explanation of the interview’s goal and structure

- Brief introduction of the interviewee and the organization he or she works for

• Family Business

- Characteristics of the FB-> Bivalent attributes

- Succession problem of the FB-> causes and current status - Future of the FB-> solution for the succession problem - Exit of the family->various options, problems involved

• Private Equity

- Characteristics of PE-> PE cycle

- Selection factors of a PE portfolio company - Actions of a PE firm after a take-over - Advantages and disadvantages of PE

• Combination FB and PE - Potential for such cooperation - Advice for FB owners

- Advice for PE firms