04-05-2019, 12:10 AM
Her er en mulighed for at læse om hvordan investeringsfonde ruinerede Remington:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/remington-guns-jobs-huntsville.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=The%20New%20York%20Times%20Magazine
Nu er vi måske flere på VTF, der har oplevet at arbejde i et firma, der er blevet solgt af passionerede gründere til en pengefikserede investorgruppering eller blot den offentlige 2%s salamimodel, relevante uddrag følger:
Pension, ældre, unge:
Private-equity buyouts are associated in the public imagination with layoffs, but the research on that topic isn’t conclusive. Private-equity-owned firms don’t necessarily occasion more layoffs than publicly traded ones, but some studies suggest that private-equity firms may be responsible for increased polarization in the job market, that is, for eliminating midlevel roles and thereby contributing to the shrinking of the middle class. A company purchased by private equity can expect to be realigned aggressively, in a five- or 10-year window, to become more “efficient,” which often entails firing, automation and offshoring. For a pension fund, then, and especially the pension fund of a union, investing in private equity can be a devil’s bargain: helping retiring workers by using tools that may harm younger ones.
Obama "sælger våben":
When Cerberus bought Remington, the company was earning $500 million a year in revenue. In 2014, it earned $939 million. Guns sales are driven by anti-gun rhetoric; a popular joke in the industry is that Barack Obama was the greatest gun salesman of all time. The numbers bear this out. In 2013, the year following his second electoral victory, American gun companies produced 10,844,792 firearms, 222 percent more than they produced in the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Den finansielle manøvre:
I asked Gustavo Schwed, a professor of private equity at New York University who spent 24 years in the industry, to help me review the documents. Schwed pored over the many years of financial data and located two separate debt transactions, one of which was so esoteric I would never even have known to look for it. Together, these transactions explained not just the mysterious 2012 loan but, indirectly, the way the deal finally unraveled.
In order to buy Remington, Cerberus, as most private-equity firms would, created a new entity, a holding company. Instead of Cerberus buying a gun company, Cerberus put money into the holding company, and the holding company bought Remington. The entities were related but — and this was crucial — each could borrow money independently. In 2010, Cerberus had the holding company borrow $225 million from an undisclosed group of lenders, most likely hedge funds. Because this loan was risky — the lenders would be paid only if Remington made a lot of money or was sold — the holding company offered a generous interest rate of around 11 percent, much higher than a typical corporate loan. When the interest payments were due, the holding company paid them not in cash but with paid-in-kind notes, that is, with more debt. These are known as PIK notes.
The holding company now had $225 million in borrowed cash. Cerberus, meanwhile, owned most of the shares of the holding company’s stock, basically slips of paper they acquired when they created the holding company. The handoff happened next: The holding company spent most of the $225 million buying back its own stock, effectively transferring all the borrowed cash to Cerberus. Cerberus would keep that money no matter what. Meanwhile Remington continued rolling along as though nothing had happened, because Remington itself was not responsible for the holding company’s debt. Remington was just an “operating company” that the holding company owned, something that allowed the holding company to borrow money, the way you would take a necklace to a pawnshop. These were garden-variety maneuvers in a private-equity buyout. In the trade, this is called “financial engineering.” People get degrees in it.
In April 2012, Cerberus did something fateful, which probably seemed smart at the time. It had Remington borrow hundreds of millions of dollars and use it to buy the holding company’s debt, effectively transferring responsibility for the principal and
the interest payments onto Remington. America’s oldest gun company now owed the money that Cerberus had used to pay itself back for having bought the company in
the first place. There were plenty of sensible reasons to do this. Gun sales were high, and the debt that Remington took out was cheaper to service than the paid-in-kind debt.
But there was a catch. Because the operating company borrowed the money with a normal loan — and not with PIK notes — interest payments were required in cash. Suddenly Remington was carrying hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that, if it could not be paid, would cause the business to go bankrupt.
By the time the factory opened in Huntsville, the various players stood in vastly different positions. The private-equity firm had made back its initial investment and was playing with house money. Remington owed hundreds of millions that it hadn’t borrowed. And its workers, urgently, had to make a lot of guns.
Jeg har været involveret i både statslig virksomhed med årlige nedskæringer, og jeg har også oplevet min privat-ejede arbejdsgiver solgt til investeringsfond, Jeg er flygtet hver gang før det gik "Tits Up".
"Enjoy"...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/remington-guns-jobs-huntsville.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=The%20New%20York%20Times%20Magazine
Nu er vi måske flere på VTF, der har oplevet at arbejde i et firma, der er blevet solgt af passionerede gründere til en pengefikserede investorgruppering eller blot den offentlige 2%s salamimodel, relevante uddrag følger:
Pension, ældre, unge:
Private-equity buyouts are associated in the public imagination with layoffs, but the research on that topic isn’t conclusive. Private-equity-owned firms don’t necessarily occasion more layoffs than publicly traded ones, but some studies suggest that private-equity firms may be responsible for increased polarization in the job market, that is, for eliminating midlevel roles and thereby contributing to the shrinking of the middle class. A company purchased by private equity can expect to be realigned aggressively, in a five- or 10-year window, to become more “efficient,” which often entails firing, automation and offshoring. For a pension fund, then, and especially the pension fund of a union, investing in private equity can be a devil’s bargain: helping retiring workers by using tools that may harm younger ones.
Obama "sælger våben":
When Cerberus bought Remington, the company was earning $500 million a year in revenue. In 2014, it earned $939 million. Guns sales are driven by anti-gun rhetoric; a popular joke in the industry is that Barack Obama was the greatest gun salesman of all time. The numbers bear this out. In 2013, the year following his second electoral victory, American gun companies produced 10,844,792 firearms, 222 percent more than they produced in the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Den finansielle manøvre:
I asked Gustavo Schwed, a professor of private equity at New York University who spent 24 years in the industry, to help me review the documents. Schwed pored over the many years of financial data and located two separate debt transactions, one of which was so esoteric I would never even have known to look for it. Together, these transactions explained not just the mysterious 2012 loan but, indirectly, the way the deal finally unraveled.
In order to buy Remington, Cerberus, as most private-equity firms would, created a new entity, a holding company. Instead of Cerberus buying a gun company, Cerberus put money into the holding company, and the holding company bought Remington. The entities were related but — and this was crucial — each could borrow money independently. In 2010, Cerberus had the holding company borrow $225 million from an undisclosed group of lenders, most likely hedge funds. Because this loan was risky — the lenders would be paid only if Remington made a lot of money or was sold — the holding company offered a generous interest rate of around 11 percent, much higher than a typical corporate loan. When the interest payments were due, the holding company paid them not in cash but with paid-in-kind notes, that is, with more debt. These are known as PIK notes.
The holding company now had $225 million in borrowed cash. Cerberus, meanwhile, owned most of the shares of the holding company’s stock, basically slips of paper they acquired when they created the holding company. The handoff happened next: The holding company spent most of the $225 million buying back its own stock, effectively transferring all the borrowed cash to Cerberus. Cerberus would keep that money no matter what. Meanwhile Remington continued rolling along as though nothing had happened, because Remington itself was not responsible for the holding company’s debt. Remington was just an “operating company” that the holding company owned, something that allowed the holding company to borrow money, the way you would take a necklace to a pawnshop. These were garden-variety maneuvers in a private-equity buyout. In the trade, this is called “financial engineering.” People get degrees in it.
In April 2012, Cerberus did something fateful, which probably seemed smart at the time. It had Remington borrow hundreds of millions of dollars and use it to buy the holding company’s debt, effectively transferring responsibility for the principal and
the interest payments onto Remington. America’s oldest gun company now owed the money that Cerberus had used to pay itself back for having bought the company in
the first place. There were plenty of sensible reasons to do this. Gun sales were high, and the debt that Remington took out was cheaper to service than the paid-in-kind debt.
But there was a catch. Because the operating company borrowed the money with a normal loan — and not with PIK notes — interest payments were required in cash. Suddenly Remington was carrying hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that, if it could not be paid, would cause the business to go bankrupt.
By the time the factory opened in Huntsville, the various players stood in vastly different positions. The private-equity firm had made back its initial investment and was playing with house money. Remington owed hundreds of millions that it hadn’t borrowed. And its workers, urgently, had to make a lot of guns.
Jeg har været involveret i både statslig virksomhed med årlige nedskæringer, og jeg har også oplevet min privat-ejede arbejdsgiver solgt til investeringsfond, Jeg er flygtet hver gang før det gik "Tits Up".
"Enjoy"...