Incentivierung des Managements bei Unternehmenskäufen/Buy-Outs mit Private Equity Investoren - eine empirische Untersuchung

Since years, incentives for the management have become a standard upon acquisitions of companies by Private Equity Investors - so-called Buy-Outs. However, until this date there are no empirical studies available on the arrangements of management participations and potential conflicts of interest especially on occasion of sales from one Private Equity Investor to another - so-called Secondary Buy-Outs. This present study is based on a survey among Private Equity Investors and Management Teams in companies controlled by Private Equity Investors. It shows a high degree of sensibility of all parties concerned for the issue of incentives and the potential conflict of interest involved with it. It also showed that market standards for management incentives have developed in the meantime. In practice, the instrument to prevent conflicts is therefore the transparency of the transaction. The only way to prevent criminal and civil consequences (damages) for the managers involved, as well as obstructing or even frustrating the process as a whole, is an open and transparent communication about the selling process and possible concepts of incentives between all parties concerned, i.e. seller, buyer and the management involved. Despite the frequency of such transactions there are - until today - no market standards or guide lines for this necessary transparency. The present study intends to create initial groundwork for this. --Management Buy-Out,MBO,Management Buy-In,MBI,Leveraged Buy-Out,Private Equity,Secondary Buy-Out,Managementbeteiligung,Beteiligungsvertrag,Bad-Leaver/Good-Leaver,Interessenkonflikt,Beteiligungsquote,Garantien,Exit,Incentivierung,Reporting,Transparenz

Hand-Assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy PERiumbilical versus Pfannenstiel incision and return to normal physical ACTivity (HAPERPACT): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Hand-assisted laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy (HALDN) using a periumbilical or Pfannenstiel incision was developed to improve donor outcome after a kidney transplant. The aim of this study was to investigate two methods of hand assistance and kidney removal during HALDN and their effect on the time it takes for the donor to return to normal physical activity. Methods/design: This study was initiated in November 2017 and is expected to last for 2 years. To be eligible for the study, donors must be more than 20 years of age and must not be receiving permanent pain therapy. Only donors with a single artery and vein in the graft are being enrolled in this trial. Donors with infections or scars in the periumbilical or hypogastric area, bleeding disorders, chronic use of immunosuppressive agents, or active infection will be excluded. Donors will be randomly allocated to either a control arm (periumbilical incision) or an intervention arm (Pfannenstiel incision). The sample size was calculated as 26 organ donors in each group. The primary endpoint is the number of days it takes the donor to return to normal physical activity (up to 4 weeks after the operation). Secondary endpoints are intraoperative outcomes, including estimated blood loss, warm ischemia time, and duration of the operation. Postoperative pain will be assessed using the visual analog scale, rescue analgesic use, and peak expiratory flow rate. Length of hospital stay, physical activity score, time to return to work, donor satisfaction, cosmetic score, postoperative complications, and all-cause mortality in living donors will also be reported. Delayed graft function, primary non-function, serum creatinine levels, and glomerular filtration rate will also be assessed in the recipients after transplantation. Discussion: This is the first randomized controlled trial to compare the time it takes the living donor to return to normal physical activity after HALDN using two different types of incision. The comprehensive findings of this study will help decide which nephrectomy procedure is best for living donors with regard to patient comfort and satisfaction as well as graft function in the recipient after transplantation. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03317184 . Registered on 23 October 2017

Google Goes Cancer: Improving Outcome Prediction for Cancer Patients by Network-Based Ranking of Marker Genes

Predicting the clinical outcome of cancer patients based on the expression of marker genes in their tumors has received increasing interest in the past decade. Accurate predictors of outcome and response to therapy could be used to personalize and thereby improve therapy. However, state of the art methods used so far often found marker genes with limited prediction accuracy, limited reproducibility, and unclear biological relevance. To address this problem, we developed a novel computational approach to identify genes prognostic for outcome that couples gene expression measurements from primary tumor samples with a network of known relationships between the genes. Our approach ranks genes according to their prognostic relevance using both expression and network information in a manner similar to Google's PageRank. We applied this method to gene expression profiles which we obtained from 30 patients with pancreatic cancer, and identified seven candidate marker genes prognostic for outcome. Compared to genes found with state of the art methods, such as Pearson correlation of gene expression with survival time, we improve the prediction accuracy by up to 7%. Accuracies were assessed using support vector machine classifiers and Monte Carlo cross-validation. We then validated the prognostic value of our seven candidate markers using immunohistochemistry on an independent set of 412 pancreatic cancer samples. Notably, signatures derived from our candidate markers were independently predictive of outcome and superior to established clinical prognostic factors such as grade, tumor size, and nodal status. As the amount of genomic data of individual tumors grows rapidly, our algorithm meets the need for powerful computational approaches that are key to exploit these data for personalized cancer therapies in clinical practice

Genome-wide association study identifies multiple susceptibility loci for pancreatic cancer

We performed a multistage genome-wide association study including 7,683 individuals with pancreatic cancer and 14,397 controls of European descent. Four new loci reached genome-wide significance: rs6971499 at 7q32.3 (LINC-PINT, per-allele odds ratio (OR) = 0.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.74-0.84, P = 3.0 x 10(-12)), rs7190458 at 16q23.1 (BCAR1/CTRB1/CTRB2, OR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.30-1.65, P = 1.1 x 10(-10)), rs9581943 at 13q12.2 (PDX1, OR = 1.15, 95% CI 1.10-1.20, P = 2.4 x 10(-9)) and rs16986825 at 22q12.1 (ZNRF3, OR = 1.18, 95% CI 1.12-1.25, P = 1.2 x 10(-8)). We identified an independent signal in exon 2 of TERT at the established region 5p15.33 (rs2736098, OR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.76-0.85, P = 9.8 x 10(-14)). We also identified a locus at 8q24.21 (rs1561927, P = 1.3 x 10(-7)) that approached genome-wide significance located 455 kb telomeric of PVT1. Our study identified multiple new susceptibility alleles for pancreatic cancer that are worthy of follow-up studies

Genome-wide association study identifies multiple susceptibility loci for pancreatic cancer

We performed a multistage genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 7,683 individuals with pancreatic cancer and 14,397 controls of European descent. Four new loci reached genome-wide significance: rs6971499 at 7q32.3 (LINC-PINT; per-allele odds ratio [OR] = 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.74–0.84; P = 3.0×10−12), rs7190458 at 16q23.1 (BCAR1/CTRB1/CTRB2; OR = 1.46; 95% CI = 1.30–1.65; P = 1.1×10−10), rs9581943 at 13q12.2 (PDX1; OR = 1.15; 95% CI = 1.10–1.20; P = 2.4×10−9), and rs16986825 at 22q12.1 (ZNRF3; OR = 1.18; 95% CI = 1.12–1.25; P = 1.2×10−8). An independent signal was identified in exon 2 of TERT at the established region 5p15.33 (rs2736098; OR = 0.80; 95% CI = 0.76–0.85; P = 9.8×10−14). We also identified a locus at 8q24.21 (rs1561927; P = 1.3×10−7) that approached genome-wide significance located 455 kb telomeric of PVT1. Our study has identified multiple new susceptibility alleles for pancreatic cancer worthy of follow-up studies