Private equity-backed leveraged buyout (LBO) and leveraged recapitalisation practices have been on the rise since the early 1970s when the LBO model was first invented. They continue to play a major role for investors for their less transparent and less bureaucratic investment models outside of capital markets, where financial regulations become tighter following the financial crisis of 2008 affecting global capital markets in a chain reaction. Private equity-backed LBOs and leveraged recapitalisations continue to be popular investment models, however they carry risks both at the target company level and on a macroeconomic level due to the interconnectedness of these investments with global capital markets for funding and refinancing of acquisition finance debts. Creditor protection mechanisms of company and insolvency law therefore play a central role in preventing or dealing with failures that may be triggered at the target company level and have detrimental effects for all creditors and the economy. Though the European legal capital system must be critically revisited, England's and Germany's already mature markets and legal systems should help in developing a better interpretation of these rules in developing economies like Turkey, consequently establishing a solid base for this investment practice in these economies.

We survey the empirical literature on corporate financial restructuring, including breakup transactions (divestitures, spinoffs, equity carveouts, tracking stocks), leveraged recapitalizations, and leveraged buyouts (LBOs). For each transaction type, we survey techniques, deal financing, transaction volume, valuation effects and potential sources of restructuring gains. Many breakup transactions appear to be a response to excessive conglomeration and attempt to reverse a potentially costly diversification discount. The empirical evidence shows that the typical restructuring creates substantial value for shareholders. The value-drivers include elimination of costly cross-subsidizations characterizing internal capital markets, reduction in financing costs for subsidiaries through asset securitization and increased divisional transparency, improved (and more focused) investment programs, reduction in agency costs of free cash flow, implementation of executive compensation schemes with greater pay-performance sensitivity, and increased monitoring by lenders and LBO sponsors. Buyouts after the 1990s on average create value similar to LBOs of the 1980s. Recent developments include consortiums of private equity funds (club deals), exits through secondary buyouts (sale to another LBO fund), and evidence of persistence in fund returns. LBO deal financing has evolved toward lower leverage ratios. In Europe, recent deals are financed with less leveraged loans and mezzanine debt and more high-yield debt than before. Future research challenges include integrating analyses across transaction types and financing mixes, and producing unbiased estimates of the expected return from buyout investments in the presence of limited data on portfolio companies that do not return to public status.

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.

This book deals with risk capital provided for established firms outside the stock market, private equity, which has grown rapidly over the last three decades, yet is largely poorly understood. Although it has often been criticized in the public mind as being short termist and having adverse consequences for employment, in reality this is far from the case. Here, John Gilligan and Mike Wright dispel some of the biggest myths and misconceptions about private equity. The book provides a unique and authoritative source from a leading practitioner and academic for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers that explains in detail what private equity involves and reviews systematic evidence of what the impact of private equity has been. Written in a highly accessible style, the book takes the reader through what private equity means, the different actors involved, and issues concerning sourcing, checking out, valuing, and structuring deals. The various themes from the systematic academic evidence are highlighted in numerous summary vignettes placed alongside the text that discuss the practical aspects. The main part of the work concludes with an up-to-date discussion by the authors, informed commentators on the key issues in the lively debate about private equity. The book further contains summary tables of the academic research carried out over the past three decades across the private equity landscape including: the returns to investors, economic performance, impact on R&D and employees, and the longevity and life-cycle of private equity backed deals.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive picture of the issues surrounding the structure, governance, and performance of private equity.

The First Guide to Understanding and Capitalizing on the $1 Trillion-Plus Loan Syndications and Trading Market! The Handbook of Loan Syndications and Trading is the first resource especially designed to equip institutional investors and professional money managers with expert analysis and insights on every key aspect of this rapidly growing financial market. Co-published by McGraw-Hill and the Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA), The Handbook of Loan Syndications and Trading fully explains the evolution and history of the loan market…primary and secondary markets …analytics and performance…the credit agreement… pricing and all legal and regulatory issues. This comprehensive reference guide features: First-ever guidance on the booming loan syndications and trading market, covering every topic that investors and money managers need to know Over 40 contributions from the leading players in loan syndication, including Standard & Poor's, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, along with top Buyside Institutions and Law Firms Valuable insights and observations from industry experts A comprehensive A-Z glossary of all loan syndications and trading terms Dozens of helpful tables, charts, and examples