Perhaps the most notorious byproduct of Wall Street’s private equity boom is the #leveraged #buyout,
a revolutionary and controversial investment method that Stephen #Schwarzman and #Peterson helped pioneer at #Blackstone.

For the most part, leveraged buyouts follow a predictable pattern:
A private equity firm buys a company, implements managerial changes designed to increase efficiency and then sells the company at a handsome profit.

But these transactions have drawn scrutiny from Wall Street watchdog groups,
because in most cases, the private equity firm funds its buyout using a large amount of 💥money borrowed by the company being purchased.

Thus, when it resells the company a few years later, 🔥the firm often profits greatly beyond its initial investment, 🔥while the company is left to pay off the debt created by the original buyout.

“It’s all about trying to buy and sell within three to four years,” said Josh Kosman, a financial reporter for the New York Post,
who is the author of “The Buyout of America: How Private Equity is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy.”

“You try to jack up the profits quickly often by cuts in different areas, and then you try to get out and resell it or bring it public.”

According to Kosman, private equity buyouts often lead to layoffs or other cost-cutting measures that actively harm workers.

“Companies who need to pay money back end up not spending enough on research and development, fire more people than their peers, and often they fall behind their peers,” Kosman said.

A case study of Blackstone’s method is the firm’s 2006 investment in the travel reservations business Travelport,
says Celia Weaver, research and policy director at New York Communities for Change, a social and economic justice nonprofit.

Blackstone spent $4.1 billion on the acquisition, and over the next year, Travelport laid off nearly 850 employees, about 10 percent of its total workforce.

A story in The Wall Street Journal documented the human cost of those cuts: lost health insurance, unemployment, workers forced to sell their homes or postpone plans to start a family.

“Travelport took on a lot of debt, which is common in private equity,” Weaver said.
“They will overleverage any asset because their model is to only be in the deal for a short period of time.”

Private equity investment is “inherently predatory,” Weaver said.
But defenders of private equity argue that investment by firms like Blackstone enables struggling companies to regain their footing,
leading to long-term job growth.
School of Management professor Andrew Metrick ’89 GRD ’89 described private equity investors as “radical surgeons”:
The treatment is necessary, even if sometimes a body part must be amputated, or the patient dies.

“I’m relatively certain that if you add up the ledger for contributing to society from Stephen Schwarzman, it’s heavily in the positive standpoint,” Metrick said.
“But you know, he’s broken a lot more eggs to make these omelets than most people do.”

Since the 1980s, Blackstone has evolved significantly, moving beyond traditional buyouts and expanding its reach outside the United States.
After the foreclosure crisis in the late 2000s, the firm became a major player in the real estate business, buying houses through a subsidiary group called #Invitation #Homes.

Indeed, in 2015, Blackstone became the largest owner of real estate in the world.

Claire Parker, a spokeswoman for Invitation Homes, said the company spends an average of $25,000 renovating houses, which is required to meet a 250-point checklist before move-in.

“Invitation Homes brings value to the 120,000 residents we serve by providing access to high quality,
well-maintained homes in close proximity to the neighborhoods and schools they value,” Parker said.

But according to Weaver, Invitation Homes has a track record of poor management.

In 2014, a family sued the company for failing to make repairs to a three-bedroom rental house infested with mold and cockroaches.

“There’s a huge gap between what private equity expects and what the market will deliver, if your goal is stable, long-term housing,” Weaver said.
“No matter what, Blackstone is going to make its profit.”

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/04/07/profit-at-any-cost/

#DonaldTrump is now a "leveraged" man.
To make sure he doesn't become a leveraged President, #VoteBidenHarris in November

#DonaldTrumpIsARussianAsset #Leveraged #LeveragedByPutin
#Chubb #StopFascism #StopAuthoritarianism
#VoteBlue