Insights

What is Private Equity: Fundless vs Funded

This video is Part 4 of an introduction to private equity. In this video you will learn more about the individuals involved in the process of sourcing, structuring and closing transactions. The video provides an introduction to the independent sponsor (aka fundless sponsor), and explains certain advantages dealmakers have over their competition. The conclusion covers a brief comparison of the independent sponsor structure and the private equity fund structure.

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What is Private Equity: The Right Amount of Debt

This video is Part 3 of an introduction to private equity. In this video we will explore how to determine the appropriate amount of leverage for a target investment.

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What is Private Equity: Two Examples of Leverage

This post is Part 2 of an introduction to private equity. In this video we will explore how leverage can both create and destroy value. To highlight the benefits and dangers of excessive leverage two examples are included below in both video and text format. The first was a wild win for investors in the early 80s, and the second a modern-day private equity horror story.

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What is Private Equity?

Most concisely, private equity is the business of acquiring assets with a combination of debt and equity. It is sufficiently simple in theory to be frequently compared to the process of taking out a mortgage to buy a home, but intentionally obfuscated in practice to communicate a mastery of complex financial science. When encountered, the latter should be thought of largely as a marketing effort. Vocabulary aside, the process is simple. Incredibly detailed and at times chaotic, but not the product of financial wizardry.

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M&A Auction Process

In this post we will cover the M&A auction process from the buyside perspective by detailing a “standard” process for a private equity group. In any process the objective should be to win by the smallest margin possible. Every participant knows this in theory, but the gamesmanship and strategy involved in an M&A auction can make it difficult in practice (as the first video below will demonstrate). But before we dive into the strategy, let’s first outline the process.

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