RESILIENT MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT : In Praise of #PrivateEquity #PrivateEquity

Monday, February 6, 2012

In Praise of #PrivateEquity #PrivateEquity

Excellent piece by Reihan Salam on private equity and how Bain fit into the larger picture of a dynamic economy.

The difficult truth that virtually no politician is prepared to acknowledge is that the road to job creation runs through job destruction.

…Chad Syverson, an economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, found that what separates top firms from bottom firms is, typically, a large difference in productivity, with the top ones producing almost twice as much with the same measured input. This creates an almost irresistible temptation for investors. If Firm X, languishing at the 10th percentile in terms of productivity, could somehow be overhauled to match the productivity levels achieved by Firm A, at the 90th percentile, the potential for profit would be huge. Note, however, that halving “measured input” in order to double productivity will often mean shedding the weakest performers and giving those who remain the tools they need to do their jobs better and faster. Private equity does exactly this.

What Mitt Romney discovered was that American corporations sometimes had to be dragged, wailing and whining, into a state of efficiency. As a management consultant at Bain & Company, Romney had studied successful firms and then told other firms how to replicate their strategies. But those firms had come of age in the fat years of American corporate dominance, when many believed that the Japanese could do little more than manufacture cheap toys and textiles, and many were reluctant to accept his newfangled advice. It eventually became clear that if Romney and his cohort were going to remake American business, they’d have to raise money to make their own investments. Spurred by the senior partners at Bain & Company, Romney and his merry band of consultants established Bain Capital.

I wish Romney were as eloquent in his defense as is Salam.

RESILIENT MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT