Christian Kuhn explores the impact of institutional buyouts (IBOs) characteristics on the transaction’s capital structure and examines the robustness of established theories in a context which deviates substantially from most empirical studies. With regard to capital structure theories the identified relationships suggest a renaissance of the static trade-off theory while the relevance of the agency theory could only be confirmed in part. However, it appears that agency cost of debt assume a more influential role than do agency cost of equity.