Walid Faris

Walid Faris
PhD Candidate in Finance
DRM, University of Paris Dauphine – PSL
Researcher in the Family Business and Long-Term Investment Chair
Assistant Teacher in Corporate Finance
Conducting thesis under the supervision of Mrs. Edith Ginglinger
Intersections of Corporate Control, Governance, Private Equity and Economic Impact

About Me

I am a second year PhD candidate in Finance at Paris Dauphine University - PSL and Researcher in the Family Business and Long-Term Investment Chair. Through empirical work utilizing administrative and commercial data, I explore questions related to Corporate Governance, Economic Impact, and Ownership Dynamics in finance. I work extensively with ownership databases, conducting cross-analyses and leveraging advanced econometric techniques to uncover insights into corporate behavior and outcomes.

Research

Working Papers

Family firms in France: key figures from Orbis database, 2024

Abstract: This paper examines the prevalence of family firms in France, utilizing a novel approach that combines data from the Orbis and Pappers databases. Our study focuses on listed and unlisted companies, offering a more comprehensive analysis than previous research, which predominantly addressed quoted companies. Family firms represent a substantial component of corporate ownership in France, yet identifying them, particularly among private firms, is challenging due to the use of opaque holding structures, pyramids, and complex ownership. We address the limitations of Orbis by manually tracing control chains where it provides incomplete information, and apply algorithms to further refine ownership classification. Our findings indicate that family firms represent 46.5% of our sample, a figure that rises to 54.1% when including potential family firms, significantly improving upon Orbis’ initial estimate of 30%. We reveal critical limitations in Orbis, underscoring the need for supplementary data sources, with global implications for identifying family firms.

Current Work: We are extending the methodology to a comprehensive global analysis by implementing it on the entire ORBIS Historical Database across all countries and time periods. This approach aims to construct a longitudinal time-series dataset, categorized by country and year, with enhanced Ultimate Owner classifications beyond those available in standard databases. This will allow for a detailed exploration of global ownership dynamics and their evolution over time.

Economic Implications of Private Equity Investments: A Cross-Analysis of Corporate Control and Deal Types, 2024

Description: This working paper investigates the economic implications of private equity (PE) investments in France, focusing on employment, asset restructuring, and wealth creation at a granular level by . Using advanced Difference-in-Differences (DiD) designs from the latest literature, we incorporate dynamic and binary treatments (minority and majority investments), lags in outcomes, heterogeneous effects, and policy-driven shocks to evaluate causal impacts. Leveraging an extensive cross-referenced database that integrates deal types, fund characteristics, ownership time-series, and commercial data, the study explores how PE investments reshape corporate trajectories.