The “infuriating, illuminating, essential” (Kurt Anderson) exposé of private equity: what it is, how it kills businesses and jobs, how the government helps, and how we stop it
Private equity surrounds us. Firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR are among the largest employers in America and hold assets that rival those of small countries. Yet few understand what these firms are or how they work.
In Plunder, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Ballou vividly illustrates how many private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and mobile-home parks, among other businesses, using little of their own money to do it and avoiding debt and liability for their actions. Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them.
Perhaps most startling is Ballou’s insight into how this is happening with the active support of various arms of the government. But, as Ballou reveals in an agenda for reining in the industry, private equity can be stopped from wreaking further havoc.
From the Publisher
ASIN : B0BH4XK8WG
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Accessibility : Learn more
Publication date : May 2, 2023
Language : English
File size : 1.4 MB
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 468 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-1541702127
Page Flip : Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #307,698 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store) #7 in Government & Business #18 in Private Equity (Kindle Store) #23 in Financial Services
Customer Reviews: 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (361)