From 1999 onwards, the performance of buyout investments in Europe has steadily declined. As the traditional levers of value creation - high financial leverage and multiple expansion - are common knowledge in the private equity industry and therefore no longer a source of competitive advantage, the future success of buyout investments in Europe will depend on the ability of private equity firms to improve the operating performance of their portfolio companies post-acquisition. Degenhard Meier identifies the success factors of post-investment value creation and their relative importance. He explores the dimensions of post-investment value addition characterizing the interaction between private equity firms and their portfolio companies and derives plausible hypotheses which he tests in an innovative way, i.e. he takes the current discussion on alternative methods to structural equation modeling as a basis and develops this discussion further by shedding light on partial least squares - a variance-based approach to structural equation modeling. From 1999 onwards, the performance of buyout investments in Europe has steadily declined. As the traditional levers of value creation - high financial leverage and multiple expansion - are common knowledge in the private equity industry and therefore no longer a source of competitive advantage, the future success of buyoutinvestments in Europe will depend on the ability of private equity firms to improve the operating performance of their portfolio companies post-acquisition. Degenhard Meier identifies the success factors of post-investment value creation and their relative importance. He explores the dimensions of post-investment value addition characterizing the interaction between private equity firms and their portfolio companies and derives plausible hypotheses which he tests in an innovative way, i.e. he takes the current discussion on alternative methods to structural equation modeling as a basis and develops this discussion further by shedding light on partial least squares - a variance-based approach to structural equation modeling.