Preface

We are ever amazed at the wide range of issues that are covered in private equity. Nearly all business aspects are at the heart of the matter—valuation, accounting and control, strategy, operations, financial structuring, asset allocation, management, entrepreneurship, regulation, and government policy. It is squarely at the crossroads of academia and practice where there is no mercy for just being conceptual or lacking timeliness. This creates challenges—yet great fun—in understanding the subject; in particular, in trying to break down what makes it so effective, fascinating, and perhaps addictive.

The motivation for our book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the main topics in private equity that are relevant to students in graduate programs, investors, other professionals seeking to understand the many facets of private equity, and private equity practitioners wanting a more complete analysis of this asset class.

The book has grown out of our teaching the “Private equity and venture capital” elective course at London Business School. Over the years the focus of the course has broadened internationally and by subject matter, which is reflected both in the text chapters and the case studies. Working closely with the professional private equity community in London proved particularly valuable in generating first-rate material and direct contributions through chapter co-authorships. Much of that was achieved through the Coller Institute of Private Equity and its Advisory Board. Added value came from our students who provided insights both in the classroom and outside it.

Dwight Poler, Head of Bain Capital in Europe, has been a co-instructor of our private equity course and a great supporter. Dwight’s contribution to the book and to private equity education at London Business School has been immeasurable.

Our thanks go to the private equity partners and corporate executives who agreed to graciously share their time and provide case material such as transaction data and detailed internal memoranda which subjected their firms to our close examination process. We are particularly grateful to Yoram Amiga (SunPower), Ted Berk (Bain Capital), Philippe Costeletos (TPG), Chris Freund (Mekong Capital), Anne Glover (Amadeus), Mounir Guen (MVision), Francesco Santinon (Aberdeen), and the partners at Denham Capital, Investindustrial, Realza Capital, and Swicorp. Our academic colleague Josh Lerner (Harvard Business School) also contributed in case sourcing. In writing the case studies we heavily relied on students who shouldered the burden of gathering data on the arduous projects: Jo Coles, Benjamin Dimson, Michael Geary, Edward Gera, Richard Harvey, Enrique Ho-Fernaández, Oriol Juncosa, Ashish Kumar, Norman Lee, Geoff Leffek, Charmian Long, Alberto Pons, Vishal Radhakrishnan, Vijay Sachidanand, Tamara Sakovska, Thibaud Simphal, Andrew Strachan, Richard Turner, Matthias Vandepitte, Lode Van Laere, Adolfo Vinatea, and Ananth Vyas Bhimavarapu.

The text chapters are divided into three main parts which cover fund-level topics, deal-level topics, and early-stage investing. They discuss a wide variety of subjects and that involved teaming up with leading practitioners on each topic: Jim Strang (Jardine Capital), Anthony Cecil (KPMG), Kay Nemoto and John Maloney (Alix Partners), Brenlen Jinkens (Cogent Partners), and Thomas Meyer (EVCA). For some chapters we collaborated with other academics: Oliver Gottschalg (HEC Paris), Christoph Kaserer (Technical University Munich), and Henry Lahr (University of Cambridge). On other topics we benefited from working with current and past students: Mike Glossop, Sonia Katyal, Anya Kleymenova, Bjoern Koertner, William Lamain, Fardeen Nariman, and Rebecca Zimmerman. Natalie Brawn (Bowmark Capital) provided valuable comments on earlier drafts of chapters.

The Coller Institute of Private Equity provided support in administration and references to industry knowledge. Our colleagues there were a constant source of good advice: Francesca Cornelli who actually proposed the idea of writing the book, Hans Holmen, and Ann Iveson.

The project was most effectively directed by the Wiley team. Jenny McCall cheerfully led the process from its inception, Gemma Valler and Amy Webster were a pleasure to work with and Neil Shuttlewood handled the editorial process professionally and very efficiently. We owe them all a great deal of thanks.

Last but not least, our families coped with us with patience and understanding through the laboring process. The book is dedicated to them.