Woo Hoo !!! - 'Private Equity Industry In The Crosshairs' - WaPo

[WillyT]

Private equity industry in the crosshairs
By Jia Lynn Yang, Published: January 26

Mitt Romney’s opponents have spent weeks slamming the private-equity industry where he made his fortune, saying it profits from dismantling companies and laying off workers. The industry’s trade group has pushed back. Private-equity firms are good for the country, it argues, because they make the economy run more efficiently and turn around ailing companies, creating jobs.

A class-action antitrust lawsuit against private equity’s most powerful players threatens to further damage the industry’s reputation and, perhaps by extension, Romney’s. It alleges that the firms colluded to drive down the prices paid in some of the most ambitious buyouts in corporate history.

Perhaps more significantly, it is forcing an industry known for its secrecy to hand over reams of internal documents and offer up its top executives for depositions. So far, some of the most sensitive information has been kept under seal.

The defendants include the biggest names in private equity: KKR, Blackstone, the Carlyle Group, TPG and Bain Capital, which Romney co-founded in 1984, and five others. The lawsuit covers deals inked during the industry’s most recent boom, around 2006 and 2007, several years after Romney left Bain. Many of these firms and the Private Equity Growth Capital Council ­declined to comment.

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More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/private-equity-industry-in-the-crosshairs/2012/01/26/gIQAL0p5TQ_story.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Bless you for being the bearer of glad tidings....will you stay on this story for us???

and rec n stuff.

[WillyT]

2. I'll Do My Best !!!

[kysrsoze]

3. Awesome... I can't think of a more deserving group. Well... except the banking industry.

Oh... and there's the oil industry. Oh yeah... defense. Ummm... military contractors... I guess I was mistaken.

[jmowreader]

4. No, there IS no more deserving group

While the oil industry, the defense industry, military contractors and the banking industry are evil in ways you've only read about, they DO provide useful services. The corporate takeover industry does nothing but destroy.

They're the financial equivalent of a guy with a wrecking ball. Except that in the case of the corporate raider class, a lot of the companies they wreck don't need to be.

[magical thyme]

5. K&R

This needs to be up top and out there. Thank you!