Reply #34: You must be onto something - they're debunking you.

[54anickel]

Debunking the private equity myth

Does the private equity boom mean that no company wants to be public anymore? Hardly. Fortune's Adam Lashinsky explodes the hype behind today's business buzz.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/09/commentary/lashinsky_pluggedin_privatemyth.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007010910

SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- A series of laughable assertions is becoming vogue in business circles these days, regarding what a gosh-darn pain in the rear it is to run a publicly traded company.

Hot-shot CEOs would rather work for a company controlled by a private-equity firm than by public shareholders, as The New York Times asserted in a front-page story Monday. Entrepreneurs would rather sell out than go through the tedious process of an initial public offering. Companies that do plan to go public intend to do it outside the United States.

There's a word for this kind of thinking, but it's not the kind of word that Fortune writers use in print. So let's just say it's ridiculous.

CEOs who leave the world of public firms for the supposedly cushy realm of private-equity-controlled corporations know damn well that one day - soon, if all goes according to plan - their company will attempt again to go public. That's simply how the game is played. Similarly, high-quality companies can and do go public (Google (Charts), Salesforce.com (Charts) and so on).

Riding the private equity gravy train
Finally, companies with any self-respect don't run to lightly regulated exchanges like London's AIM. According to the little understood rules there, eventually U.S. companies that list in London will come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission anyway. So running away from U.S. regulators is pointless.

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