Types of Private Equity Transactions

High costs associated with a public firm popularized take-private transactions. By taking a company private, a firm is able to reduce or eliminate the burdens of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, increase corporate control and strategy mobility, and focus on long-term strategy. The process can be incredibly lucrative for the private equity firm to unlock the value gap. A value gap represents the difference between a company’s value under its current management policies and an expected higher company value given policy changes, restructuring, and a redeployment of assets that may not directly align with the company’s core operations. The value gap itself is arguably affected by the debt-intensive means of taking the company private which forces the company into a period of financial distress after the transaction, thus forcing its management to restructure the firm, making strategic decisions that enhance the company’s value, and trim out unprofitable or low payoff business components.