New York Times (March 1)
Four decades of private equity “financial bonanza” may be coming to an end after Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that “the former directors and officers of Jones Group could be held liable for approving the [highly leveraged] sale of the company, since it later went bankrupt.” Going forward, “officers and directors had better think twice before agreeing to sell a company to a buyout firm. What had for decades been considered a virtue — selling a company for a market-clearing price to the benefit of existing shareholders — might have become a vice.”
Tags: Bankrupt, Buyout firm, Directors, Financial bonanza, Jones Group, Leveraged, Liable, Market clearing, Officers, Private equity, Rakoff, Sell, Shareholders, Vice, Virtue
Wall Street Journal (December 28)
PG&E was a “plodding utility” virtually “wired to fail.” As a result, it “has sparked deadly fires and pipeline explosions, left millions of Californians in the dark and gone bankrupt twice in less than 15 years.”
Tags: Bankrupt, California, Explosions, Fail, Fires, Pipeline, Plodding, Sparked, Utility
New York Times (May 30)
Though European leaders are congratulating themselves for the latest debt agreement for Greece, “there is little to celebrate. Greece is bankrupt in all but name…. The reality is that Greece can’t be squeezed any harder.” The latest agreement is more of the same. “This crisis will never end if European leaders keep pushing policies that have repeatedly failed.”
New York Times (October 28)
“It is anyone’s guess how much more turmoil the Ukrainian people can take after they have watched their country battered, dismembered and bankrupted.” Nevertheless, Sunday’s elections “demonstrated that a large majority still support reform and a Westward course. At this critical juncture, it is imperative that the United States and European Union support them with immediate, tangible and generous support.”
