[2007.2.8]Private equity:The uneasy crown 私募股本:不安的国王

Sharp criticism has become a daily nuisance for the private-equity industry. Its leaders, such as Steve Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group, David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group and Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake Partners, were treated like royalty at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. But having to debate “Is bigger better in private equity?” and then listen to Philip Jennings, general secretary of UNI Global Union, tell them they “should no longer consider themselves untouchable” took the edge off their acclaim.
尖锐的批评每日纠缠着私募股本业。他们的代表人物，比如黑石基金(Blackstone Group)的Steve Schwarzman，凯雷基金 (Carlyle Group)的David Rubenstein以及银湖合作基金(Silver Lake Partners)的Glenn Hutchins尽管在Davos世界经济论坛上受到最高级别的礼遇。但他们不得不在论坛上参与“私募股本基金是否越大越好”的辩论，然后又听着全球工会(UNI Global Union)主席Philip Jennings在论坛上说，(私募基金管理人们)，“不要再认为自己碰不得”，让他们颜面扫地。

They can be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu. Until recently, private equity seemed to have shed its bad-boy image of 20 years ago, summed up in “Barbarians at the Gate”, a bestselling book about the battle by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) to buy RJR Nabisco. But from barbarians to Herod in two decades hardly seems like progress.
自从描述KKR收购RJR Nabisco的最佳销售小说<野蛮人在门口>以来的20年，私募股本业似乎已经洗脱了他们”坏小子”的形象。比起当年，他们现在好多了。但是花20年从野蛮人转为希律王也很难说是进步。

The 1980s boom in private-equity deals—then known as leveraged buy-outs (LBOs)—came to an abrupt and messy halt. The buy-out firms found they had over-paid for some acquisitions, credit markets dried up, some of the important providers of finance (such as Michael Milken, the “junk-bond king”) ended up in jail and regulators cracked down on their beloved hostile takeover bids.
上世纪80年代曾风光一时的私募股本交易（当时的名词是杠杆收购LBO)最后的收场意外而仓促。 某些收购交易的成本高于合理水平，信贷市场枯竭，某些重要的融资商(比如’垃圾债券王’Michael Milken)最后锒铛入狱，监管者让私募股本公司最爱的敌意收购(hostile takeover)一蹶不振。

Nobody expects to see a repeat of that reverse, even though some criticisms are eerily familiar. Unions complain that buy-out firms are asset-strippers: the London protest was against the axing of jobs by Birds Eye, a food company owned by Permira, the biggest European private-equity firm. But now fellow financiers are also on the attack. “Am I alone in struggling to make sense of private equity’s appeal?” wrote Michael Gordon, the chief investment officer of Fidelity International, in a recent letter to the Financial Times.
尽管没人认为历史会重演，但是某些批评听起来熟悉且令人不适。工会批评说收购者是资产剥离者：伦敦有抗議Birds Eye裁员，这家食品公司的老板是欧洲最大的私募股本公司Permira。现在某些金融界人士也加入了这个队伍，Fidelity International的首席投资长Michael Gordon在Financial Times发表了一篇评论”是否只有我才清醒的意识到私募股本的意义?”

Regulators, too, are growing agitated. Last year Britain’s Financial Services Authority concluded after an inquiry that at least some of the industry’s activities will end in tears. America’s Department of Justice is investigating whether the increasingly common bidding consortia, in which several private-equity firms club together, are in breach of antitrust laws. Last month the Federal Trade Commission ordered Carlyle and Riverstone to cease day-to-day involvement in one of the two energy firms they own, so as to ensure competition. In Congress Barney Frank, the new Democratic chairman of the powerful House finance committee, is due to hold hearings on private equity.
监管机构也越来越坐立不安。 英国金融服务管理局，去年在回应一个咨询时表示，私暮股本的某些收购行动最后会以眼泪收场。美国司法部，正在调查日益增加的联合收购(bidding consortia,也就是多家私募股本公司联手出价)是否违反了反垄断法。联邦贸易委员会，为维持市场竞争上个月命令凯雷基金（Carlyle）同Riverstone退出他们所拥有的两家能源公司中的一家的日常管理，以保证能源市场的竞争。很有影响力的众议院金融服务委员会，新上任的民主党人主席Berney Frank，将就私募股本举行听证。

Shareholders of targeted companies are also starting to smell a rat. They suspect that top managers, who usually remain in charge when their business passes into private hands, are selling too cheaply in order to get a bigger slice of the profits for themselves when the private-equity buyer eventually sells the firm on. Recent attempts to take ClearChannel and Cablevision private met fierce opposition from shareholders feeling short-changed.
目标公司的股东也开始嗅到了点什么。他们怀疑公司高层有意低价出售股份，以求在私募股本公司将来卖出时从中获得好处，这样的高层往往在公司转手后仍然在位。由于这样的原因，最近的ClearChannel同Cablevision的私有化就遭遇了股东的强烈反对。

Making their case
作出解释

The kings of capitalism have started to respond. In December several top American private-equity firms formed the Private Equity Council to fight their corner in Washington, DC. Similar groups already play that role across the Atlantic.
资本主义的国王们开始作出回应，为在首都华盛顿维护自己的权益，12月一些主要的美国私募股本公司组建了私募股本业委员会。在大西洋彼岸类似的组织已经存在。

In Davos Carlyle’s Mr Rubenstein conceded that the industry “does an awful job” in presenting itself to the public. Rather than talk about the jobs created for blue-collar workers, too often people in private equity “brag about how much money we make”. As a first step, the private-equity bosses agreed to sponsor a two-year research project. Mr Rubenstein expects it to show that “most of the money we make goes to public pension funds. We create a lot of jobs and pay a lot of taxes.”
在达沃斯，凯雷基金（Carlyle）的Rubenstein先生承认业界在公关方面’做得很糟糕’。过多的’吹嘘我们赚了多少钱’而没有宣传自己在提供蓝领就业机会方面所作的工作。作为第一步，私募股本公司老板们同意资助一个两年研究计划。Rubenstein先生期望这个计划将会告诉公众”我们赚到的大部分钱都流入了公共退休基金，我们在就业机会和纳税方面的贡献也不少”

The main defence offered by private-equity firms is that they are good for the companies they own and for the economy as a whole. Henry Kravis of KKR claimed last year that private-equity investing “leads not only to value creation, but also to economic and social benefits, for example, increases in employment, innovation, and research and development”.
私募股本公司指出他们对目标公司乃至整体经济发展都有正面作用。KKR的Henry Kravis去年说到私募股本投资”不仅创造了价值，而且在增加就业，创新，研发等方面为经济和社会作出了贡献”。

The past three years have been extremely good for private equity with returns for all but the smallest funds comfortably beating the S&P 500 index (see chart 2). Long-term performance also looks strong, at least at first glance. From 1980 to 2001, the average fund generated higher gross returns than investing in the S&P 500, according to a study by Steve Kaplan of the University of Chicago and Antoinette Schoar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
过去3年私暮股本的表现相当不错，除了小型基金外，大中型基金的回报率都超过了S&P500指数，长期表现也很好，至少第一感觉是这样的。芝加哥大学的Steve Kaplan和麻省理工学院的Antoinette Schoar的一份研究显示，自1980年到2001年一般的基金的名义回报率都跑赢了S&P500。

Given the obsession of investors with yield, no wonder so much money has poured into private equity. There are now some 2,700 private-equity firms, managing assets of $500 billion. They are led by a number of giants (see table 3). Only two years ago the largest fund was worth $6 billion, but some reports say Blackstone’s fund is now worth some $20 billion.
丰厚的收益使投资者为之着迷，毫不奇怪资金大量涌入私募股本投资。目前有2700家私募股本公司管理着5000亿美元的资产。几家大公司是其中的主角(见表3)。两年前，最大的基金的管理着60亿美元的资产，然而据报现在仅黑石基金（Blackstone）就有差不多200亿美元。

However, the headline numbers come with caveats. First, they do not include the typically huge fees paid to the general partners who manage the funds. Mr Kaplan and Ms Schoar found that, on average, the returns to investors after subtracting these fees were slightly lower than they would have received by investing in the S&P 500 in 1980-2001.
但对这些头条数字我们应该细看一下 。首先，基金通常要付给管理基金的普通合伙人们（general partner）巨额的费用，这笔费用没有算进去。Kaplan 与 Schoar女士发现，平均起来，在1980年到2001年投资于私募股本基金的回报如果减去管理费用，会比同期投资S&P500指数的回报略低。

Secondly, they found huge differences in performance between funds. In 1980-2001, the top quartile of private-equity funds produced an annual rate of return of 23%, well ahead of the S&P; the bottom quartile earned investors only 4%. Not only was there a large gap between the best and the rest, but their respective performances were also remarkably consistent. The study showed that the winners in private equity tend to keep on winning and the bad firms stay bad—if they remain in business. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this pattern has endured, with the notable change that big firms are now outperforming the rest and in turn attracting a disproportionate slice of new money.
第二，他们发现各只基金的表现有天壤之别。从1980年到2001年，私募股本基金中表现最好的四分之一创造年均回报23%，远高于S&P500指数。而表现最差的四分之一仅为投资者挣得4%的回报。不仅好基金与差基金之间相差巨大，而且各只基金的表现还十分具有一贯性。研究表明私募股本基金中的赢家往往一直是赢家，表现不佳的基金则一直很糟（如果它们不退出的话）。观察证据(anecdotal evidence)也表明这一模式经久不变，很显著的就是大基金现在表现都比中小基金好，造成了他们吸引新资金的能力不成比例. 。

What makes a top performer? Mr Kaplan lists some characteristics: the expertise to analyse deals and add value; the ability to attract the best executives and other talent to companies; and a strong network to search for deals, sometimes avoiding auctions.
表现最佳的基金是凭什么成功的？Kaplan列出了以下特征：分析和增值的才能；吸引最优秀的管理人员与其它优秀人才的能力；还有搜寻收购交易的强大消息网（有时还要避免拍卖）。

Some suspect that success is all about higher levels of debt. Private-equity firms borrow heavily to buy companies—the equivalent of a gambler borrowing money to double his bet. Given that higher leverage equals higher risk, where is the benefit? As Fidelity’s Mr Gordon puts it, ultimately investors in private equity are backing the same companies that they held as listed groups. “Performance over time will be driven by the same factors: earnings growth, cost management and so on,” he adds. “The difference is leverage. Strip out the leverage and the correlation with quoted equities is tight.”
有人怀疑私募股本基金的成功完全仰赖于高比例负债。这些基金为购买公司大量借贷 ，这与一个赌徒借钱押下双倍赌注也没什么分别。融资越多风险越大，这样做的好处到底在哪里呢？就如共同基金Fidelity的 戈登先生所说，私募股本的投资者们最终还是在购买私募股本收购的上市公司。 “长期的表现还是取决于同样的因素：赢利增长、成本管理等等，”他还说，“区别在于杠杆融资。剔除杠杆因素之后,他们是一回事。”

There is a lot to this. In the early days leverage was responsible for most of the superior returns. Moreover, the easy credit of the past three years has helped. (An arguably worrying development has been the rise in “leveraged recaps with equity dividends”, whereby a recently acquired company borrows heavily in order to pay a large dividend to its new owner.)
这个问题一言难尽。早期，大多数巨额回报应当归功于杠杆。此外，过去三年中宽松的借贷环境也起到了一定作用。（一个明显让人担心的发展趋势是“红利形式的杠杆资本重组”（leveraged recaps with equity dividends) 的流行，因此最近一家最收购的公司要借巨债付给新东家一笔巨额红利）。

On the other hand, since the mid-1990s private-equity firms have taken every opportunity to stress that they do not depend on financial engineering—a technique that they say is now widely imitated by public companies and thus no longer a source of advantage. Instead, they prefer to draw attention to other ways in which they improve the firms they own.
另一方面，自1990年代中期开始，私募股本公司利用所有机会强调它们并不依赖金融工程（financial engineering），它们认为这套方法现在已被许多上市公司仿效，不能再带来优势。它们则把精力集中到其它办法上来改进拥有的公司。

One is corporate governance. Unlike the owners of public companies, who tend to be too remote and thinly spread to spend time and money closely monitoring a business, private-equity firms have big stakes. Because their people’s careers are on the line, they have a powerful incentive to keep a close eye on things. There is also a strong incentive to maximise long-term value—which is what stockmarket investors are valuing in an initial public offering (IPO). Asset stripping is rarely the best long-term strategy. Even when they sell—at least in an IPO—private-equity firms often retain a significant shareholding for years after.
一是公司治理。上市公司的股东要想监督公司运营的话，往往因为距离太远，股权又太分散，难以花时间与金钱在这方面。而私募股本公司则不同，它们手持大额股份。私募股本管理人的前程和被收购公司利益紧密相关是他们紧密监督的诱因
。私募股本公司还有很强的让收购公司长期价值最大化的动力，因为股市投资者在首次公开发行股票时很看重这个。在大多数情况下，资产剥离都不会是最佳的长期战略。即使私募股本公司出售公司时，至少如果是通过IPO方式，通常也会在随后几年继续持有份额很大的股权。

This claim has some academic support. In a recent study, “The Performance of Reverse Leveraged Buyouts”, Jerry Cao of Boston College and Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School, examined the post-IPO performance of nearly 500 companies floated by private-equity firms in 1980-2002. They found the shares of the firms sold outperformed both the overall stockmarket and shares issued in other IPOs that were not backed by private equity. Highly leveraged firms performed no worse than those with less debt. Bigger IPOs backed by private equity did even better than smaller ones.
有些学术研究也为这一观点提供支持。波士顿大学的Jerry Cao与哈佛商学院的Josh Lerner最近发表了一项研究，名为《反向杠杆收购的表现》（The Performance of Reverse Leveraged Buyouts）。他们研究了1980年到2002年间私募股本公司发起上市的近500家公司在首次公开发行股票（IPO）之后的表现。他们发现这些公司的股票表现优于总体股市，也比其它非私募股本公司发起上市的公司股票表现出色。负债率高的公司并不比负债少的公司差。私募股本公司发起上市的大公司甚至比小公司表现要好。

But Messrs Cao and Lerner sounded a note of caution. Those firms that were owned by private equity for less than a year performed relatively poorly, suggesting that “buying and flipping” back to the market—increasingly common nowadays—is a less useful role for private equity than building improvements into the business over a few years.
但Messrs Cao与Lerner同时也发出警告。私募股本持有时间少于一年的公司表现相对较差，这意味着对于市场来说，“买了就抛”的策略（现在越来越多）没什么好处，私募股本公司还是该从长期着眼，改进收购公司的管理。

Old hands
老手们

Experience also counts for more. Private-equity firms used to be run only by financiers, but they are now adding partners (albeit not as fast as some would like) who have run big companies. These include superstars such as Jack Welch, formerly of General Electric (GE), and Lou Gerstner, once head of IBM. A huge service industry has grown up to help, providing lots of work for consultants and headhunters. Bidding consortia allow generalist firms to team up with specialists to gain expertise. Silver Lake, for instance, is much sought-after by clubs bidding for technology companies; Providence Equity Partners plays a similar role in media deals.
经验也十分重要。过去，私募股本公司通常仅由金融业人士管理，但现在也有有大公司管理经验的新伙伴加入了（虽然还没快到有些人希望的速度）。其中就有些企业界的明星，如前通用电汽总裁杰克.韦尔奇（Jack Welch)，前IBM总裁罗尔.葛斯特恩（Lou Gerstner）。一个庞大的服务行业也由此成长起来，为咨询师与猎头人提供了许多工作机会。联手竞标（Bidding consortia）的方式让能才公司（generalist firm）能与专家们组成团队，取得某方面的专门知识。比如银湖合作基金就在高科技企业的联手竞标方面表现出色而受到追捧，在媒体收购方面，PEP基金（Providence Equity Partners）也扮演着类似角色。

Firms in private-equity portfolios are free of the most onerous regulations to which public companies are subjected, such as aspects of America’s Sarbanes-Oxley act, which was rushed into law after the collapse of Enron. They are subject to less scrutiny in the press, especially when it comes to short-term dips in profits. And they can pay executives whatever they wish without facing an uproar. Compared with public companies, private-equity firms tend to be more generous in rewarding good performance, but they punish failure more heavily. Given that many of the most talented executives are risk-takers who want to get rich, it is no surprise that many are switching to private equity.
上市公司必须受到十分苛刻的规则约束，而私募股本公司所持有的公司则不必像上市公司那样受到诸如《萨班 斯-奥克斯利法案》（sarbanes-oxley　act）这样的限制，该法案在Enron公司破产后被迅速通过。私募股本旗下公司受到的新闻界的监视也较少，特别是当利润短期下滑时。它们无论付给高层管理人员多高的薪酬，也不用面对公众的反对。同上市公司相比，私募股本旗下公司奖励业绩好的管理人员时往往更慷慨，但惩罚失败者也更严厉。鉴于许多最出色的管理人员都是喜欢“冒大险、挣大钱”的人物，所以许多人跳往私募股本公司就一点也不奇怪了。

The “drain of management talent at all levels to private equity is one of the main reasons I am open to taking the firm private,” the boss of a company with a market capitalisation of $16 billion recently told The Economist. That is the most striking difference between private equity today and in the 1980s, says Chicago’s Mr Kaplan. “In the 1980s company bosses were implacably opposed to LBOs. Now they see an opportunity to be able to do a better job and be better paid when they succeed.”
“各层次的管理人才都被私募股本公司吸走，这是我不反对把公司私有化的主要原因之一，”一位市值达160亿美元的大公司总裁最近对《经济学人》说。芝加哥的Kaplan说，这是今天的私募股本公司与1980年代的私募股本公司的最显著区别，“1980年代，公司老总们都毫不犹豫地反对融资收购（LBO）。现在老总们却从中看到机遇：他们能做得更出色，如果成功还能得到更多回报。

Many bosses have become evangelists for private equity. Cristóbal Conde, the boss of SunGard, is quick to enthuse about how much more helpful his financial software company’s new private-equity owners were than he expected, encouraging him to concentrate on long-term growth.
许多总裁都成为私募股本公司的传道者。SunGard公司总裁克利斯托保.康德（Cristóbal Conde）很快就激动不已，他的财务软件公司的私募股本新东家对公司的帮助出乎他的意料，能激励他把精力集中到公司的长期增长方面。

More threatening than criticism are the problems of success. With so much interest in private equity, more money than ever is chasing deals. To increase the number of deals they can do, several of the bigger firms are said to have become interested again in hostile takeovers, at least for the funds they are now raising. Club deals may also pose difficulties, especially if things do not go according to plan and partners have a difference of opinion.
然而比批评更有威胁的却是成功带来的问题。私募股本基金涉及巨额利益，这造成了追逐收购交易的资金数额之大史无前例。为了收购更多的企业，据说几家大基金又开始对恶意收购感兴趣（至少他们目前在为此筹集资金）。
联合收购可能也会造成困难，特别是当形势没有按计划发展，而合作伙伴们的意见又开始产生分歧。

And there are the diseconomies of scale common to any business that has grown so far from its entrepreneurial roots. Not for nothing have the biggest private-equity firms been called the “new conglomerates”. They are sprawling empires, with extremely diverse firms to manage. For example, Blackstone’s portfolio includes stakes in Michael’s, an arts and crafts retailer; Emcure Pharmaceuticals; Deutsche Telekom; Orangina, a drinks firm; FGIC, a bond insurer, and Houghton Mifflin, a publisher. It also owns part of SunGard in partnership with KKR. KKR’s assets include HCA, a health-care firm; NXP, once the semiconductor business of Philips; Primedia, a publisher; Sealy, a mattress-maker; and Toys “R” Us.
任何生意在扩张到一定规模后都会产生“不经济”的问题，私募股本基金也不例外。最大的私募股本公司被人称作“新一代的跨行业集团”，这并非毫无理由。它们已成为一些庞大的帝国，要管理的企业种类极其多样。比如，黑石基金持有下列企业的股份：艺术品与工艺品零售商麦克氏（Michael’s）、Emcure制药、德意志电信公司（Deutsche Telekom ）、饮品公司Orangina、债券承销商FGIC、出版公司Houghton Mifflin，黑石还与KKR合伙拥有SunGard的部分股权。KKR的资产则包括医疗保健企业HCA、菲力浦以前旗下的半导体业务NXP、出版公司Primedia、床垫制造商Sealy，还有玩具零售商Toys “R” Us。

Can private-equity firms manage their empires? Harvard’s Mr Lerner worries about the spread of bureaucracy and in-fighting, including battles over how to share out the spoils when the performance of different parts of the firm varies sharply. He points to Carlyle as a good example of a firm tackling these difficulties with its centralised, team-building “One Carlyle” process. As the founders step down at several of the bigger private-equity firms, succession may add to the burden.
这些私募股本公司能管理好他们的王国吗？哈佛商学院的 Lerner先生对官僚主义与企业内斗的蔓延十分担心，企业内斗的其中一种就是当基金旗下公司业绩差别很大时，各方瓜分战利品的战斗。他指出凯雷基金（Carlyle)就是一个很好的例子，凯雷基金用其中央集权的”一个凯雷”管理团队来解决此类困难。几家大私募股本公司的创建者退位之际，权力交替可能会使此类问题更显突出。

When the credit stops
信贷止步之时

The credit markets show no sign of losing their appetite for lending. On the contrary, private-equity firms report turning down offers of credit because they are too generous. Nonetheless, leverage is rising steadily, to worrying levels. One day the market will dry up, perhaps suddenly, and what will happen then?
信贷市场至今未显现出任何想要控制借款的迹象。相反，私募股本公司倒是说提供信贷的人太慷慨了，它们不得不拒绝其中的一些。不管怎么样，融资额还是稳步增长，现在已经增长到让人担忧的水平了。总有一天信贷市场会被抽干，还可能会来得十分突然，到那些会发生什么呢？

Chicago’s Mr Kaplan is surprisingly optimistic. The repayment terms on loans to private equity are far more generous than in the 1980s, when repayment of the principal started immediately. Now there is often no requirement to start repaying the principal until after seven or more years. As a result, private-equity firms are likely to have a lot of time to put things right if one of their firms gets into trouble.
芝加哥的Kaplan先生的乐观却乐观得让人吃惊。现在借给私募股本的款项的还款条件比1980年代要慷慨得多，1980年代的本金还款是在借款时立即开始的，而现在通常在七年（甚至更久）之内没有开始还款的要求。在这种情况下，如果旗下公司出现问题，私募股本公司就能有很多时间把局面扭转。

The industry also has to watch for a change in the behaviour of public companies, which are starting to respond to shareholder pressure to get a higher price from private-equity bidders. “Shareholders are increasingly asking why they are selling at a price less than what it will be worth in the future.” says Colin Blaydon, of the Tuck Centre for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship. GE recently imposed limits on the number of private-equity firms that could club together to bid for its plastics division to try to ensure a competitive auction rather than a carve-up.
私募股本行业还必须留心上市公司行为的变化，股东对上市公司施加压力，要求从私募股本竞标者那里卖得更高的价钱，上市公司也开始对此作出回应。“越来越多的股东在问，为什么他们现在卖出股权的价钱会比将来这个股权的价值要低。”来自为私募股本与企业家精神所设的塔克中心（Tuck Centre）的柯林.柏雷顿（Colin Blaydon）。最近通用（GE）要出售其塑料业务时，就给能联合竞标的私募股本公司作了数量上的限制，想以此来保证拍卖的竞争性，而不会变成一场“瓜分大餐”。

Activist hedge funds are also putting pressure on likely targets to increase their borrowing. This, they think, will both increase the value of the firm in just the way it would under private-equity ownership, and remove one of the main incentives for private equity to buy.
行动型对冲基金（Activist hedge funds）也开始向有可能被收购的公司施加压力，要求公司增加借贷。 他们认为，这样做一方面可以使公司增值－－就象如果公司被私募股本买下后一样，同时可以把私募股本收购该公司的主要动机消解掉。

Perhaps the greatest threat to the continued growth of private equity is regulation. The burden on public companies may be eased. Sarbanes-Oxley is likely to be given a makeover this year, with its notorious section 404 on internal controls watered down. On the other hand, politicians may increasingly try to regulate the private-equity industry.
对私募基金的持续增长最大的威胁可能来自监管方面。上市公司身上的监管压力却可能减轻。《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》（Sarbanes-Oxley act）今年可能会作出重大修改，把关于内部控制臭名昭著的404条款改得宽松一些。另一方面，政客们也可能更加想管制私募股本行业。One chief executive recently observed: “The moment a public pension fund loses 20% of its value due to some private-equity investment going wrong, private equity will get its own Sarbanes-Oxley.” The new kings of capitalism must try to prevent this from happening by showing that they really are a force for good.
一位首席执行官最近预言：“如果将来有一刻因为什么私募股本投资出错而让一个公共退休基金贬值20%，私募股本行业就会招来它们的《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》。”资本主义的新君主们必须想办法防止这样的事发生，让大家明白，他们是一支有益的力量。注：Herod:希律王,犹太王（公元前40-4年），据《新约》讲，他命令杀死伯利恒所有两岁以下的儿童，想借以杀死尚处于襁褓中的耶稣。文章以此影射私募基金的声誉不佳。