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Shedding light on private equity
WITH PRIVATE equity buyouts on the rise in Australia, recent UK research has found that private equity firms tend to introduce strict new performance management systems such as performance and…
Lawyers Weekly
WITH PRIVATE equity buyouts on the rise in Australia, recent UK research has found that private equity firms tend to introduce strict new performance management systems such as performance and merit pay, regular performance appraisal and new HR management systems upon buying companies out.
Furthermore, some 40 per cent of managers in private equity firms said they are hostile to trade unions, while just one in 10 said they were positive about the role of unions.
“Private equity firms pride themselves on their ability to squeeze performance from the organisations they own, and they turn up the pressure on individuals in order to do so,” said Will Hutton, chief executive of The Work Foundation, which released the report.
The report also found that where an outside management team is introduced to an organisation in a management buy-in, employment falls on average by just under a fifth over a six-year period. Workers are on average £231 ($554) a year worse off than other private sector workers.
The report concluded that there was an urgent need to ensure private equity firms throw open their books to proper public scrutiny, that they pay appropriate levels of tax, and that the growth of private equity is not exposing economies to a risk of instability due to the levels of debt the industry takes on as it grows.
