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- 2012 (4)
- 2011 (19)
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- 2009 (25)
- 2008 (36)
- 2007 (50)
- 2006 (19)
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Why private equity needs financial discipline 26 Apr 2012
Private equity firms - and the industry as a whole - are a little obsessed with overall returns. In particular, they like to be able to show their investors that they're doing better with their money than, say, one of the highly liquid quoted indices; or property. The problem is, in recent years, that hasn't always been the case. But... Read more
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Time to tweet (well, twitter) 13 Mar 2012
The big problem with Twitter? Most people think it's a way of telling strangers what you're up to. I've lost count of the number of people who say "why would anyone be interested in what I had for breakfast?" as a means of dismissing it. But the fact is, it should never be used that way. It's more like a... Read more
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Picking your targets 9 Feb 2012
Ever since the financial meltdown in 2008, private equity has been something of a balancing act. The three principles that support deals - leveraging equity with debt, exploiting higher multiples and increasing profits - have all suffered. There's less debt, there's less optimism (hurting multiples) and the economy has remained sluggish (limiting growth).The evidence of how this has affected the... Read more
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2012: just a re-tread? 5 Jan 2012
The start of a new year ought to be a time for fresh beginnings. But there are already signs that much of the news for UK businesses this year is going to be a re-hash of previous years. First up, we have a nice reprise of 2008, with dire warnings about a fresh credit crunch from the Deloitte CFO survey. That's... Read more
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Chairmen look to ease the lonliness of command 1 Dec 2011
It was no surprise when EquityFD sprouted an offshoot designed to help backed businesses find great chairmen. Apart from the strong business rationale, it's becoming increasingly common for FDs to look at chairman roles, rather than CEO ones, when they get fed up of the finance function. EquityChair draws on talent from across the business world, of course, it's not... Read more
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Turnaround in 2012? 7 Nov 2011
Turnaround is an art. It even has its own trade body, the Institute for Turnaround. (Members can add the splendid letters MIFT after their names - which makes them sound perpetually discontented.) But the basics are familiar to every finance exec: cash and forecasting. I was chatting to two US CFOs in PE-backed businesses last week, and they were clear:... Read more
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It’s the operational leverage, stupid! 20 Oct 2011
Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid!" to remind staffers that they would win if they focused on the obvious areas where the competition was weak. Well, since the demise of the debt markets - and the disappearance of the financial leverage used to deliver returns in many private equity deals - we, along with many... Read more
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What to do with the cash? 17 Oct 2011
There's no news value in the revelation that - collectively, at least - companies have maintained very healthy balance sheets through this recession. Stung by the speed of the dot-com crash and related downturn in 2001, corporates have been hoarding cash aggressively since 2002 as a bulwark against unexpected catastrophes. (It's no co-incidence that theories like the Black Swan has come to... Read more
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The world is your coach 29 Sep 2011
One of the great things about the web - and particularly social media like Twitter and LinkedIn - is that you can very easily get a wide variety of advice about different situations. Take this piece from Forbes magazine's web site. It comes from social media source Quora and although it's ostensibly about start-up CFOs, it's full of interesting advice... Read more
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Always look on the bright side 6 Sep 2011
I've been chatting to angel investors and VCs for a story over the past fortnight, and many seem quite bullish about the start-up scene - and PE investing generally. Why? After all, there's talk of a great depression, the euro is heading for the knacker's yard and billions are wiped off shares every other day. Why would PE - and... Read more