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What Private Equity Investors Think They Do for the Companies They Buy

Harvard Business Review

What have been less explored are the specific actions taken by private equity (PE) fund managers. In a survey of 79 PE firms managing more than $750 billion in capital, we provide granular information on PE managers’ practices and how firms’ strategies relate to the characteristics of their founders.

CAPM 8
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Still Many Ways to Skin a Capital Cost

Harvard Business Review

Estimating the rate at which to discount the cash flows — the cost of equity capital — is an integral part of the exercise, and the choice of rate has a significant effect on estimates of a project's or a company's value. Tight convergence on a best practice may not be necessary, then, in this realm of management.

CAPM 14
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Why We Need to Update Financial Reporting for the Digital Era

Harvard Business Review

Digital companies, however, consider scientists’ and software workers’ and product development teams’ time to be the company’s most valuable resource. So, investors, and therefore managers, might be adjusting their approach to risk accordingly. Traditional companies therefore rely on two strategies.

Report 8
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Why Sit on All that Cash? Firms Uncertain on Cost of Capital

Harvard Business Review

Fully 79 percent of companies, including 91 percent with annual revenues greater than $1 billion, use discounted cash flow techniques. There is less consistency, however, in how organizations estimate cash flows and determine the weighted average cost of capital at which those cash flows are discounted.