Once an obscure niche of the investment world, private equity has grown into a juggernaut, with consequences for a wide range of industries as well as the financial markets. Private equity funds control companies that represent trillions of dollars in assets, millions of employees, and the well-being of thousands of institutional investors and their beneficiaries. Even as the ruthlessness of some funds has made private equity a poster child for the harms of unfettered capitalism, many aspects of the industry remain opaque, hidden from the normal bounds of accountability. The Myth of Private Equity is a hard-hitting and meticulous exposé from an insider’s viewpoint. Jeffrey C. Hooke—a former private equity executive and investment banker with deep knowledge of the industry—examines the negative effects of private equity and the ways in which it has avoided scrutiny. He unravels the exaggerations that the industry has spun to its customers and the business media, scrutinizing its claims of lucrative investment returns and financial wizardry and showing the stark realities that are concealed by the funds’ self-mythologizing and penchant for secrecy. Hooke details the flaws in private equity’s investment strategies, critically examines its day-to-day operations, and reveals the broad spectrum of its enablers. A bracing and essential read for both the financial profession and the broader public, this book pulls back the curtain on one of the most controversial areas of finance.
Getting the money you need to finance your business with Private Equity When starting a new business, you will need money. Depending on your business idea, you may not have the necessary funds to realize your idea. Most people think that going through a bank and getting a loan is the only way to get started. They soon realize that banks are not willing to lend money on an idea. Too often, this is the end of the dream. Another way to finance your business idea is to raise money from private investors. There are many great business ideas that struggle to find investors willing to invest. Either they dont have a clear strategy on how the investor can invest or there is concern that the investor will take over control of the business. Investors may be wary if there isnt an exit strategy. The solution to the above problems is Private Equity. Private Equity can be defined as investments in companies that are not yet publicly traded on a stock exchange. A business should be set up in a way that there is a structure and plan for investors to be able to buy shares of the company. There needs to be a clear share structure in place so that the owner of the business does not lose control of the company but at the same time allows investors to participate. This book will teach you the basics of Private Equity and will explain how to structure a company to get it financed. It also covers the advantages on take a company public and how to do it.
Private equity firms have long been at the center of public debates on the impact of the financial sector on Main Street companies. Are these firms financial innovators that save failing businesses or financial predators that bankrupt otherwise healthy companies and destroy jobs? The first comprehensive examination of this topic, Private Equity at Work provides a detailed yet accessible guide to this controversial business model. Economist Eileen Appelbaum and Professor Rosemary Batt carefully evaluate the evidence—including original case studies and interviews, legal documents, bankruptcy proceedings, media coverage, and existing academic scholarship—to demonstrate the effects of private equity on American businesses and workers. They document that while private equity firms have had positive effects on the operations and growth of small and mid-sized companies and in turning around failing companies, the interventions of private equity more often than not lead to significant negative consequences for many businesses and workers. Prior research on private equity has focused almost exclusively on the financial performance of private equity funds and the returns to their investors. Private Equity at Work provides a new roadmap to the largely hidden internal operations of these firms, showing how their business strategies disproportionately benefit the partners in private equity firms at the expense of other stakeholders and taxpayers. In the 1980s, leveraged buyouts by private equity firms saw high returns and were widely considered the solution to corporate wastefulness and mismanagement. And since 2000, nearly 11,500 companies—representing almost 8 million employees—have been purchased by private equity firms. As their role in the economy has increased, they have come under fire from labor unions and community advocates who argue that the proliferation of leveraged buyouts destroys jobs, causes wages to stagnate, saddles otherwise healthy companies with debt, and leads to subsidies from taxpayers. Appelbaum and Batt show that private equity firms’ financial strategies are designed to extract maximum value from the companies they buy and sell, often to the detriment of those companies and their employees and suppliers. Their risky decisions include buying companies and extracting dividends by loading them with high levels of debt and selling assets. These actions often lead to financial distress and a disproportionate focus on cost-cutting, outsourcing, and wage and benefit losses for workers, especially if they are unionized. Because the law views private equity firms as investors rather than employers, private equity owners are not held accountable for their actions in ways that public corporations are. And their actions are not transparent because private equity owned companies are not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thus, any debts or costs of bankruptcy incurred fall on businesses owned by private equity and their workers, not the private equity firms that govern them. For employees this often means loss of jobs, health and pension benefits, and retirement income. Appelbaum and Batt conclude with a set of policy recommendations intended to curb the negative effects of private equity while preserving its constructive role in the economy. These include policies to improve transparency and accountability, as well as changes that would reduce the excessive use of financial engineering strategies by firms. A groundbreaking analysis of a hotly contested business model, Private Equity at Work provides an unprecedented analysis of the little-understood inner workings of private equity and of the effects of leveraged buyouts on American companies and workers. This important new work will be a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the informed public alike.
Private equity firms are snapping up brand-name companies and assembling portfolios that make them immense global conglomerates. They're often able to maximize investor value far more successfully than traditional public companies. How do PE firms become such powerhouses? Learn how, in Lessons from Private Equity Any Company Can Use. Bain chairman Orit Gadiesh and partner Hugh MacArthur use the concise, actionable format of a memo to lay out the five disciplines that PE firms use to attain their edge: · Invest with a thesis using a specific, appropriate 3-5-year goal · Create a blueprint for change--a road map for initiatives that will generate the most value for your company within that time frame · Measure only what matters--such as cash, key market intelligence, and critical operating data · Hire, motivate, and retain hungry managers--people who think like owners · Make equity sweat--by making cash scarce, and forcing managers to redeploy underperforming capital in productive directions This is the PE formulate for unleashing a company's true potential.
Current strategy thinking focuses on what to do, not how to motivate employees, suppliers and business partners to do it. Whether working with employees or with external suppliers, companies are increasingly stumbling with implementing strategy. But why is this happening? And how can we address it? Collaboration Strategy argues that motivating people and companies is fundamental to business success. In the activities that matter most in today's economy – design, development, marketing, sales, projects – it is hard to define just what you want done. Setting up business activities to get the results you want becomes a strategic challenge. In industries from pharmaceuticals to fashion, software to stock exchanges, new ways of working with partners that break down traditional company boundaries and establish new roles and relationships have enabled businesses to grow rapidly and achieve superior profits. At the heart of this book, Felix Barber and Michael Goold have combined their considerable expertise to present a complete and original 'collaboration framework' based on their findings over a seven year period in which they interviewed over 200 businesses. The framework explains how to set up to get the results you want for a range of different activities and industries. They present the 10 requirements needed for profitable collaboration, and use real-life scenarios to apply their framework and analysis, offering a menu of tactics to address the most common problems in setting up collaboration with partners. Essentially, you must design a basis for working together, or 'collaboration,' with your employees and suppliers that will get them to do what you want.
The first true insider’s account of private equity, revealing what it takes to thrive among the world’s hungriest dealmakers “Brilliant . . . eloquently takes readers inside the heroic world of private equity . . . [an] essential read.”—Forbes ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE SUMMER—Bloomberg Private equity was once an investment niche. Today, the wealth controlled by its leading firms surpasses the GDP of some nations. Private equity has overtaken investment banking—and well-known names like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—as the premier destination for ambitious financial talent, as well as the investment dollars of some of the world’s largest pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and endowments. At the industry’s pinnacle are the firms’ partners, happy to earn “two and twenty”—that is, a flat yearly fee of 2 percent of a fund’s capital, on top of 20 percent of the investment spoils. Private equity has succeeded in near-stealth—until now. In Two and Twenty, Sachin Khajuria, a former partner at Apollo, gives readers an unprecedented view inside this opaque global economic engine, which plays a vital role underpinning our retirement systems. From illuminating the rituals of firms’ all-powerful investment committees to exploring key precepts (“think like a principal, not an advisor”), Khajuria brings the traits, culture, and temperament of the industry’s leading practitioners to life through a series of vivid and unvarnished deal sketches. Two and Twenty is an unflinching examination of the mindset that drives the world’s most aggressive financial animals to consistently deliver market-beating returns.
Raising Capital for Private Equity Funds is an authoritative, insiders perspective on key strategies for raising private equity capital in a changing legal environment.
Explanations to the inner workings of one of the least understood, but arguably most important, areas of business finance is offered to readers in this engaging volume: venture capital. Venture capitalists provide necessary investment to seed (or startup) companies, but the startup is only the beginning, there is much more to be explored. These savvy investors help guide young entrepreneurs, who likely have little experience, to turn their businesses into the Googles, Facebooks, and Groupons of the world. This book explains the often-complex methods venture capitalists use to value companies and to get the most return on their investments, or ROI. This book is a must-have for any reader interested in the business world.
Fully revised and updated to reflect changes in the private equity sector Building on and refining the content of previous editions, Introduction to Private Equity, Debt and Real Assets, Third Edition adopts the same logical, systematic, factual and long-term perspective on private markets (private equity, private debt and private real assets) combining academic rigour with extensive practical experience. The content has been fully revised to reflect developments and innovations in private markets, exploring new strategies, changes in structuring and the drive of new regulations. New sections have been added, covering fund raising and fund analysis, portfolio construction and risk measurement, as well as liquidity and start-up analysis. In addition, private debt and private real assets are given greater focus, with two new chapters analysing the current state of these evolving sectors. • Reflects the dramatic changes that have affected the private market industry, which is evolving rapidly, internationalizing and maturing fast • Provides a clear, synthetic and critical perspective of the industry from a professional who has worked at many levels within the industry • Approaches the private markets sector top-down, to provide a sense of its evolution and how the current situation has been built • Details the interrelations between investors, funds, fund managers and entrepreneurs This book provides a balanced perspective on the corporate governance challenges affecting the industry and draws perspectives on the evolution of the sector.
The first book to comprehensively address private equity and health care, Ethically Challenged raises the curtain on an industry notorious for its secrecy, exposing the nefarious side of its maneuvers.
