These pension deals had a telling name, however. They were called “pension risk transfers,” and therein was their problem. The companies selling their pension obligations were transferring to another entity the risks associated with making these payments for years to come. A good thing for the companies, of course, but beneficial to the pensioners? Not so fast.
/4
#privateEquity #leonBlack #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #pensions

That left the retirees very much at risk for problems that might arise from the Athene purchase—there would be no government agency to bail them out, for example, as they’d had in their corporate-sponsored pensions. /3
#privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #bookstodon #nonfiction

This book is really, just amazing...
By mid-2022, almost four hundred ten thousand corporate retirees were trusting Athene to provide them with a prosperous retirement. They’d been given no choice in the matter—their former companies had sold their pensions to Athene [Apollo, Leon Black] without giving them the right to object. #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers
/1

“.. by 2021, white-collar crime prosecutions stood at an annualized rate of 4,727, or roughly half the level of twenty years earlier. Of those cases, only about 10 % were against financial institutions; more cases involved identity theft and fraud in federal programs and healthcare.”

These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner
#privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #leonBlack #nonfiction

Excerpt From
These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner p. 97
#leonblack #bookstodon #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #gretchenmorgenson #joshuaRosner #nonfiction #apolloGroup #johnGaramendi

John Garamendi. -- man, you did policy holders 'dirty' as California Insurance Commissioner in 1991:
"In any case, the advantage given to [Leon] Black’s partners by [John] Garamendi led to a terrible outcome for Executive Life’s policyholders. He’d allow assets needed to fulfill Executive Life’s promises to be sold off for far less than they were really worth. ..

#leonblack #bookstodon #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #gretchenmorgenson #joshuaRosner #nonfiction #johnGaramendi

‘Charles Tate, a founder of buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, noted, with clarity: “When you put too much debt on a company, it becomes dysfunctional, when a company is spending its whole time trying to meet the next interest payment, it can’t concentrate on the business.”’

These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner

#privateEquity #bookstodon #nonfiction #theseAreThePlunderers #financialization #predatoryCapitalism

1988 RJR Nabisco $25 buyout: “Everyone knew LBOs [Leveraged Buyouts] meant deep cuts in research and every other imaginable budget, all sacrificed to pay off debt. Proponents insisted that companies forced to meet steep debt payments grew lean and mean. On one thing they all agreed: The executives who launched LBOs got filthy rich.”

These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner

#privateEquity #bookstodon #nonfiction #theseAreThePlunderers #financialization #predatoryCapitalism

By June 2021, though, the 1 percenters had raced ahead, their wealth surging to 27 % of the whole versus 26.6 % of the middle class.""

Excerpt From
These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner p. 62
#leonblack #bookstodon #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #gretchenmorgenson #joshuaRosner #nonfiction #apolloGroup

"Even though the nation’s debt markets far exceed the stock market in dollar value, regulatory officials have focused much more closely on policing activities in stock trading than in bond transactions. You almost never hear of insider trading cases involving debt issues, for example."

Excerpt From
These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner p. 53
#leonblack #books #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #gretchenmorgenson #joshuaRosner #nonfiction #apolloGroup

"Even though the nation’s debt markets far exceed the stock market in dollar value, regulatory officials have focused much more closely on policing activities in stock trading than in bond transactions. You almost never hear of insider trading cases involving debt issues, for example."

Excerpt From
These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner p. 53
#leonblack #bookstodon #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #gretchenmorgenson #joshuaRosner #nonfiction #apolloGroup

“No matter. Profiting from problems you’ve created is a long-standing tradition on Wall Street. For example, investment bankers are famous for advising corporate clients whose acquisitions don’t work out to sell companies they had advised them to buy in the first place. Best of all, advisers earn fees on both deals.”

These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner
#leonblack #bookstodon #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo #gretchenmorgenson #joshuaRosner #nonfiction

“In addition to taking down the president of Honduras, the fraud helped produce a new law banning such payoffs—the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
The suicide occurred while Leon Black was finishing up at Harvard Business School.

These Are the Plunderers
Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner
#leonblack #bookstodon #privateEquity #theseAreThePlunderers #apollo