The Private Equity Boom, Easy Money, and Crony Capitalism

Amongst the big winners from the Obama Fed’s Great Monetary Experiment has been the private equity industry. Indeed this went through a near-death experience in the Great Panic (2008) before its savior – Fed quantitative easing – propelled it forward into new riches. There is no surprise therefore that its barons who join the political stage (think of the last Republican presidential candidate) have no interest in monetary reform. And the same attitude is common amongst leading politicians who hope private equity will provide them high-paid jobs when they quit Washington.
The ex-politicians are expected by their new bosses to join the intense lobbying effort aimed at preserving the industry’s unique tax advantages (especially with respect to deductibility of interest and carry income) whilst establishing the links with regulators and governments (state and federal) that help generate business opportunity for the varied enterprises within the given private equity group. The special ability of these to take advantage of the monetarily induced frenzy in high-yield debt markets and secure spectacularly cheap funds means they become leading agents of malinvestment in various key sectors of the economy.
What’s Makes Private Equity Run?
Spokespersons for the industry claim that the private equity business is all about spotting opportunities to take over already established businesses, and then using home-grown talent (within the private equity management team) to transform their organization so as to create value for shareholders. And this can all be accomplished, they say, without the burden of frequent reporting requirements as in public equity.
That is all very laudable, but why all the leverage, why all the political connections, and why all the tax advantages? And even before getting to these questions, why should we praise the secrecy? After all, public equity markets are meant to do a good job of incentivizing and disciplining management, especially in this age of shareholder activism, so why is private equity superior?

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on JANUARY 24, 2015.