When starting out on this piece the question I was tasked to answer was ‘Is Private Equity really private?’ but only the lightest touch of research was enough to say quite categorically that the answer to that questions is no.
Pandora’s Box is open, and everyone wants a peek. Deal with it.
Yes, there is always something comforting in sitting in hidden corners, plying your trade without being exposed to public scrutiny. And no, that is not to say that any of those dealings are in anyway shady or anything less than solid, well-intentioned business practices, however that is to say that like it or not, those strategies are being examined and publicised internationally by anyone with an inclination to do so.
So the real questions that need to be answered are ‘How will this affect PE as an industry?’ and ‘How will this affect your business model and strategy, if at all?’
The fire has been fuelled by an aggressive strike by President Obama this week with a new video ad, along with a website that clearly depicts Romney and Bain as the scourge of the blue-collar worker, bent on making the whole of the United States unemployed so he can sell the country off for a profit.
The video depicts embittered former steelworkers from GST Steel in Kansas City who were laid off after Bain acquired the company and eventually shut it down. As you can imagine, moody soundtracks ensue as grainy photos of Romney in the 80s and 90s looking ‘wealthy’ (i.e. on the phone, in a shirt and tie) spliced between desolate images of the abandoned factory and the aforementioned workers pin the blame solely on Bain.
To download this whitepaper in full please visit http://www.wbresearch.com/capitalcreationeurope/capitalcreationdownloads.aspx?utm_campaign=Blogger Article&utm_medium=blogger&utm_source=11718.006_BLG_14&utm_content=download&MAC=11718.006_BLG_14The best way to tackle the first part is to briefly cover some fairly well-trodden ground and examine America’s poster-boy for anti-PE lobbyists, Republican electoral candidate Mitt Romney. Currently being lambasted in the press for the work of his Private Equity firm Bain Capital, Romney has unwittingly brought a light to be shone starkly onto PE firms as a whole.
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