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

Harvard Business Review

” PE firms typically take three types of value increasing actions — financial engineering, governance engineering, and operational engineering. In financial engineering, PE investors provide strong equity incentives to the management teams of their portfolio companies.

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Could a Four-Year-Old Do What Carl Icahn Does?

Harvard Business Review

r>g: Economist Thomas Piketty’s formula for spiraling wealth inequality, in which the rate of return on capital is higher than economic growth, has its critics. stock markets over Icahn’s career, it’s a simple factual assertion — the total return on the S&P 500 has substantially outstripped economic growth.

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American CEOs Should Stop Complaining About Uncertainty

Harvard Business Review

In 1998, Mo was running a highly profitable and stable engineering firm serving European mobile operators. He sold that company to do what no European operator would (though he begged them): Start an African cell phone company. Mo Ibrahim, founding CEO of Celtel. Mo sold Celtel 10 years later for $3.4