Private equity surrounds us. Firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR are among the largest employers in America and hold assets that rival those of small countries. Yet few understand what these firms are or how they work.

In Plunder, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Ballou vividly illustrates how many private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and mobile-home parks, among other businesses, using little of their own money to do it and avoiding debt and liability for their actions. Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them.

Perhaps most startling is Ballou's insight into how this is happening with the active support of various arms of the government. But, as Ballou reveals in an agenda for reigning in the industry, private equity can be stopped from wreaking further havoc.

About the Author
Brendan Ballou, a special counsel at the Department of Justice, was part of the original team that brought suit in U.S. v. Google and leads the Department's work on private equity and interlocking directorates. Previously, he served in private practice, and before that, in the National Security Division of the Justice Department, where he advised the White House on counterterrorism and other policies. He graduated from Columbia University and Stanford Law School.


Book Information
ISBN 9781541702103
Author Brendan Ballou
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint PublicAffairs,U.S.
Publisher PublicAffairs,U.S.
Weight(grams) 560g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 154mm * 34mm