Skip to main content
PaperintermediateFree

Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity (Journal of Economic Perspectives)

by Steven N. Kaplan, Per Strömberg · American Economic Association

Survey of the leveraged buyout industry by two of its leading academic researchers, covering deal structure, fund and fee economics, governance and operating changes at portfolio companies, and the empirical evidence on returns through the 2007 boom. Single best free document explaining what a PE firm actually is: the partnership structure, the 2-and-20 economics, leverage and governance mechanisms, and what the data says about whether any of it creates value.

Visit resource

More resources on Private Equity

PaperFree

OCC Comptroller's Handbook – Leveraged Lending

The US bank regulator's examination manual for leveraged lending, setting out how supervisors define a leveraged transaction, assess repayment capacity and enterprise valuation, judge covenant quality and underwriting standards, and classify credits that fail those tests.

PaperFree

Leveraged Finance 101: A Covenant Handbook

Law firm handbook on high-yield bond and leveraged loan covenants, contrasting incurrence with maintenance tests and working through restricted subsidiaries, ratio debt, builder baskets, restricted payments, and liens, the drafting mechanics behind credit agreement flexibility.

WebsiteFree

Wall Street Prep – Ultimate Guide to Leveraged Finance

A practitioner-oriented reference on the debt used in leveraged buyouts, comparing first and second lien term loans, revolvers, high yield bonds, mezzanine, and unitranche on pricing, security, and covenant terms, with worked capital structure examples.

BookPaid

Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street

Academic study of what happens to companies after they are bought: debt loads, sale-leasebacks, dividend recapitalisations, employment and bankruptcy outcomes, and the limited-liability structures that insulate funds from portfolio company failure. This covers what buyouts do to the operating businesses and their workers. Evidence-based and industry-literate rather than polemical.

BookPaid

King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone

History of Blackstone from a two-person 1985 startup to a listed asset manager, tracing how buyout shops became permanent institutions: raising first funds, the 2006-07 credit boom, the crash, and the pivot from deals to fee-earning assets. Covers what Barbarians cannot: how the fund model, LP relationships and firm economics evolved from the 1980s to the present.

BookPaid

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

Reported account of the 1988 bidding war for RJR Nabisco, the defining leveraged buyout of its era. Shows how LBO financing, management buyouts, junk bonds, bankers and boards actually behave when a deal is live.

See all Private Equity resources →