Private equity

If you want to be successful, you have to harness the talent. The top private equity firms have a genius for hiring superior talent. All organizations need great people, but PE measures talent with one test only: performance. It’s not that private equity firms are heartless. Rather, their three- to five-year time horizon doesn’t allow […]

Times change and markets transform themselves overnight. The half-life of common wisdom is shorter than ever. But top private equity firms have distilled a set of institutional habits that boost the likelihood of their success. What’s critical to this success? Attitude. PE leaders take pains to foster a “results-oriented mind-set”. In short, that means creating […]

Instead of casting a wide net, try a more strategic approach.

A new paper shows how leveraged buyouts lead to more patents.

How to identify and attract investors who will support your long-term, stakeholder-focused plans.

The unique benefits of private equity investment

Buyout firms would see opportunity for value enhancement in five key areas. Why not beat them to the punch?

Private equity fund performance is most often reported in a way that exaggerates the truth. A modified calculation gives a more accurate read of performance...

Historically, the efforts of private equity firms to address leadership challenges have been limited primarily to replacing portfolio-company CEOs. Now,...

A year ago, most of us couldn’t name a single asset in the Cerberus Capital Management portfolio. Today, we know them as the private equity firm that bought controlling interests in Chrysler, General Motor’s financing arm, and — as of this week — United Rentals, one of the world’s largest equipment rental companies. In spite […]

Why “buying to sell” can generate a much higher return on investment than the public company practice of “buying to keep”

It prioritizes short-term profits over patients’ health.

Despite their reputation in the 1980s as corporate raiders, most private equity firms attempt to improve the performance of their portfolio companies...

Doing business starts with building mutual trust and respect.

A few months back I wrote about micro-decisions and how they can add up to macro money. But as a student of decision-making I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that one big decision — who will own an organization — has a massive effect on performance, culture, and organizational effectiveness. I’m prompted […]

The obstacles you can expect to confront, and how to overcome them.

As the 50-year-old industry matures, investment returns are falling. Here’s why — and where to go from here.

Deals ultimately succeed or fail because of the people involved.

They don’t use the financial tools they learned in B-school.

Private equity investors in Asia are fine-tuning the art of the turnaround using three principal strategies.