Description

Book Synopsis

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.

Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America

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    A Hardback by Brendan Ballou

    £22.50

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    RRP £25.00 – you save £2.50 (10%)

    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Mon 19 Oct 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher PublicAffairs,U.S.
      Published 1 June 2023
      ISBN-13 9781541702103
      978-1541702103
      ISBN-10 1541702107

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      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.

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