Money For Nothing?
Over the past week, Dan and I have been reading The Buyout of America, a new book about private equity by business reporter Josh Kosman. Due out on November 12, the book intends to expose the ways private equity firms destroy the companies they buy. The book draws a straight line from the LBO to a Chapter 11 in the case of some of the largest LBO-backed busts and makes the case that private equity firms damage healthy companies and hurt innocent workers. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't contribute an opinion on the book's thesis, except to say that it's written for a more general audience, so it does not dive deeply into some of the particularly wonkish aspects of the industry that we cover here at peHUB. Instead, I'd like to share one detail which exemplifies the book's overall tone. It's an observation from an interview with Scott Sperling at the offices of THL Partners, which owns Warner Music. In a time of growing populist rage against things like Wall Street bonuses, corporate jets, and yes, THL's profit on its failed investment in Simmons Bedding, this kind of anecdote can be particularly effective, regardless of whether it tells the whole story. And aside from all that, the existence of weird, cheesy deal trophies like this is, to me, just plain amusing. From the prologue:
