This book traces the historical rise of private equity finance in the US and UK over the last 40 years. It shows how this new industry has grown as credit markets have grown. It is clearly explained for the non-expert how financial gearing works in a leveraged buyout.

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the main theories and survey the empirical evidence on the impact of private equity leveraged buyouts (LBOs) on innovative activity at target companies. I illustrate how the theoretical lenses through which LBOs are described have adapted to the...