In pursuing bank privatization, governments in Central Europe and Russia faced a common set of policy issues, including how to break up the monobank system, deal with troubled loans, transfer equity to the private sector, and attract capital to the banks. For each bank undergoing privatization, the government's approach to such issues determines its transactional structure. We develop this conceptual framework and assess the findings from three studies of major commercial banks undergoing privatization. The varied transactional structures used in these privatizations appear to have had significant effects on each bank's microstructure and to influence bank strategy and post-privatization performance.J. Comp. Econom.,August 1997,25(1), pp. 5–30. The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; and University of Michigan Business School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 and The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.