The Pirates of Private Equity (How one industry is wrecking businesses, harming consumers and undermining the world's financial markets)

Private equity buccaneers have generated untold wealth by plundering the worlds of commerce, defence and sport. In the process they have also destroyed jobs, hurt consumers, neglected environmental concerns and undermined public trust in share markets. Private equity has been widely discussed in the media, but the critical impact is rarely explored. In this book, Alex Brummer, City Editor at the Daily Mail, lifts the lid on the dangers of private equity and how the actions of private equity firms affect all of our lives.

Financially driven private ownership has contributed to waterways being clogged with sewage; high parking charges; malfunctioning baggage handling at airports; the collapse and impairment of some of our best-loved retail stores and the alienation of sports fans from much-loved franchises. Private equity finance is an industry which thrives on leverage (debt), is untrammelled by regulations, poses a danger to economic stability and often works against the national interest.

Starting out in the US, the private equity industry rapidly spread to Britain, where many of the big players have set up their European and global headquarters. In this wide-ranging book, Alex Brummer takes in a broad focus on the dangers of private equity to the global economic order, examining in detail the danger of grotesque levels of debt, and the neglect of the public interest in what private equity firms do.