In 2007, the IUF published a A Workers' Guide to Private Equity, a 36 page A5 brochure, aimed at IUF affiliates and trade unions and their members around the world. Available in English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish, it remains an indispensable guide for trade unionists. Click here for more details and to order your copies.Blackstone Chairman Stephen Schwarzman, speaking from Davos, Switzerland, has warned Australia of a foreign investment "chill" following that country's efforts to collect taxes on a windfall deal from private equity giant TPG.
Continue reading "Blackmailing the Taxman, from Davos to Sydney" »
Barring any last-minute surprises, Kraft, the world's second-largest food company, will swallow UK-based Cadbury in a deal which in its reliance on debt bears a family resemblance to...a leveraged buyout.
Private equity operator Blackstone, according to the Wall Street Journal of October 29, "has good reason to be nervous about Hilton." They're not alone; the enormous leverage taken on to finance the buyout at the height of the debt bubble now weighs heavily on the more than one hundred thousand Hilton employees around the world, on the wider financial system, and on the US Treasury, and therefore US taxpayers. Here's why.
Continue reading "Blackstone's Hilton Woes Will Weigh on Workers" »
While defaults rise and growing numbers of private-equity backed companies continue their march to bankruptcy (though not necessarily losses for the funds which marched them there), the "creative" financial devices which helped fuel the buyout boom appear poised for a comeback.
Continue reading "Recap Rerun: Short Memories, Missing Regulation" »
Private equity funds hoping to cash in on the stock market to return money to hungry investors through IPOs (initial stock offerings) may have hit a brick wall. What does this mean for workers?
Microfinance, small business loans to the urban and rural poor, was originally conceived as a tool for poverty alleviation. It has become big business - and private equity has rushed in. The Wall Street Journal of August 13 reports that in India, private equity funds among other investors have "poured billions of dollars over the past few years into microfinance world-wide", using methods reminiscent of the aggressive, predatory lending which spawned the subprime debt bubble in the US. In India today, the article reports, "Some poor neighborhoods are being 'carpet-bombed' with loans" bearing interest of 24% to 39%.
Continue reading "The Next Debt Bubble? PE Fuels Subprime Microfinance in India" »
New research from Bloomberg makes clear the magnitude of the private equity losses suffered by US employee pension funds in the period 2000-2008.
Continue reading "US Pension Funds' Private Equity Disaster: Lost on the Road to Alphaville" »
Goldman Sachs, which has made billions through financing and collecting "advisory fees" on buyout deals in addition to being a major buyout actor in its own right, has posted record quarterly profits. Is prosperity around the corner?
Continue reading "Illusion, Reality, and the Quarterly Report" »
Two private equity groups - CVC Capital Partners and TPG - are the two private equity funds which remain in the running to acquire the Eastern and Central European assets of Anheuser-Busch Inbev in a bidding process which closed on July 27.
Continue reading "CVC Capital in Bid for Anheuser-Busch InBev ECE Operations" »