Leandro Sanz
Assistant Professor of Finance
Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame
I study corporate finance with a focus on how firms navigate frictions in global production networks. My recent work examines supply chain disruptions, financial intermediation, and intangible assets, including what keeps large private startups from going public.
Ph.D. in Finance, The Ohio State University.
Recent
Selected working papers
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Building Corporate Resilience to Supply Chain Disruptions
I examine how firms build resilience against supply chain disruptions to hard-to-replace inputs. Firms hold more inventory, less cash, and higher leverage, and update these policies after shocks that reveal new information about risk.
Abstract. I examine how exposure to disruption risk from hard-to-replace inputs affects corporate resilience investments and firms' learning about that risk. Using a new dataset on 11,000 foreign suppliers to U.S. manufacturers, I show that firms with fewer alternative suppliers hold more inventory and less cash, and have higher leverage. Exploiting natural disasters that disrupt suppliers, I find that firms update their beliefs about disruption risk and make persistent changes to corporate policies in response. Consistent with learning, the response is strongest after first-time shocks. Finally, firms with higher inventory buffers are better protected against performance losses when disruptions occur.
Supplier map 
ln(Volume) 
Inventories/Sales 
Cash/Assets 
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Why do Startups Become Unicorns Instead of Going Public?
We propose an efficiency explanation for unicorns. Startups relying heavily on organization capital stay private to protect it from expropriation until their position is sufficiently secure.
Abstract. Unicorns are startups that choose to stay private even though they are large enough to go public. We propose an efficiency explanation for their existence. Startups relying highly on organization capital are more vulnerable to expropriation of their organization capital if they go public before their position is sufficiently secure. Our main empirical findings are that shocks to the fragility of organization capital decrease the IPO likelihood, unicorn status enables startups to stay private longer by giving them access to new sources of capital, and unicorns and their industries have higher organization capital intensity than other startups.