PE4FAMs Blog

Turning the page on a great year is always bittersweet. While the future is exciting, the status quo is also mighty inviting. For private equity, 2016 will go down with Dickensian hyperbole as “The Best of Times”. Our business model turns on six or seven main ingredients, the absence of any one of which can […]

You can get a pulse of America by paying attention to the TV shows acceptable for hospital waiting rooms where comfort, tranquility and hope are cultivated among those patients and family waiting for judgment or healing. Based on my recent pre election waiting room experiences there are only 4 acceptable channels: Judge Judy HGTV The

It seems like the whole world is now fascinated by a business model that has been around for more than 40 years. In the October 22nd issue of The Economist an editorial panel took a look at Private Equity. Entitled “The Barbarian Establishment” the article is mostly complimentary: “Private Equity has prospered while almost every

The 2016 presidential election results were surprising and the aftermath is sure to bring more surprises. There appears to be premature celebration in many camps as business interprets the Trump victory in a most positive light. There are, however, a few bedrock changes coming that will set a business, legal and tax foundation for the

Writing a blog about The World Series when your home team is a participant would seem as natural as blonde hair at a hair dressers convention. But I was resisting (jinx concerns) until I read a column by Jared Diamond in Monday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal “How the Cubs Overpowered October”.  Like most

One of our portfolio company CEOs sent me a really interesting comparison of the PE business model with the public company business model. “What private-equity strategy planners can teach public companies” By Matt Fitzpatrick, Karl Keliner, and Ron Williams (Link Here) is a ringing endorsement for several value creation techniques that PE managers employ. Matt

The President announced last week that it is time to regulate driverless cars. This usually means finding a way to tax the new technology or strangle it while a more nimble and less regulated country steals the technology or copies it. But in the heat of a quest for Presidential legacy and scant time to

I have been introduced to a new concept in the work place called “reverse mentoring”. It was supposedly first introduced by Jack Welch to bridge the technology chasm between older and younger GE workers. Techopedia.com defines it as follows: “Reverse mentoring refers to an initiative in which older executives are paired with and mentored by