article thumbnail

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

Harvard Business Review

We also know that private equity funds have outperformed public equity markets over the last three decades , even after the fees they charge are accounted for. In operational engineering, PE firms develop industry and operating expertise that they bring to bear to add value to their portfolio companies.

CAPM 8
article thumbnail

Still Many Ways to Skin a Capital Cost

Harvard Business Review

When executives evaluate a potential investment, whether it's to build a new plant, enter a new market, or acquire a company, they weigh its cost against the future cash flows they expect will spring from it. How can that be when the same information about the stock's underlying company and markets are available to both?

CAPM 14
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Why We Need to Update Financial Reporting for the Digital Era

Harvard Business Review

The market caps of just four companies, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, now exceed $3 trillion. Their combined assets of $944 billion are an order of magnitude lower than the combined assets of $7,700 billion of the largest 3,177 companies in 1986, when the aggregate market capitalization reached $3 trillion for the first time.

Report 8
article thumbnail

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.