《The Private Equity Playbook》读书笔记

There is an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.有句古老的谚语说：“模仿是最真诚的奉承。”
Understanding the game is the key to making good decisions and navigating these opportunities successfully.理解游戏规则是做出正确决策、成功把握这些机会的关键。

《The Private Equity Playbook》

Adam Coffey

131个笔记

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2026/01/12 认为好看

Introduction

I decided to enlist in the United States Army. The army taught me discipline and leadership and was a valuable foundation from which I established and built my career. I worked as an engineer for a number of years, and it made me a meticulous planner. Eventually, I crossed over from engineering into business during a ten-year stint at General Electric. There, I worked my way up to mid-level management and learned how to run a company. Private equity recruiters came knocking on my door, and I didn’t turn them away. Those decisions launched me into a twenty-year career serving as the president of three different companies.我决定应征入伍美国陆军。军队教会了我纪律和领导力，并成为我建立和打造职业生涯的宝贵基础。我当了多年的工程师，这让我成为一个一丝不苟的规划者。最终，我在通用电气的十年职业生涯中，从工程领域进入商业领域。在那里，我一路晋升到中层管理岗位，并学会了如何经营一家公司。私募股权招聘人员敲开了我的门，我没有拒绝他们。这些决定让我开始了20年的职业生涯，担任三家不同公司的总裁。 Each business was different. One was a medical company that serviced imaging and biomedical equipment, such as CAT scanners, MRIs, infusion pumps, and bed monitors in a hospital setting. Another was a commercial laundry firm that serviced 550,000 washers and dryers located in 70,000 apartment complexes and laundromats across North America. I’m currently with a third business that is America’s largest refrigeration and HVAC service company touching 33,000 different customer locations. All three were national private equity-backed service companies.每家公司都不同。一家是医疗公司，为医院提供成像和生物医学设备，如CT扫描仪、核磁共振成像仪、输液泵和病床监测仪。另一家是商业洗衣公司，为北美各地 7 万个公寓楼和自助洗衣店的 55 万台洗衣机和烘干机提供服务。我目前所在的第三家公司是美国最大的制冷和暖通空调服务公司，为 3.3 万个不同客户地点提供服务。这三家公司都是私人股本支持的服务公司。 As a result of these positions, I have billions of dollars in sell side, merger and acquisition, and financing experience. I know how to run processes and how to buy and sell companies. I’ve become an investor in private equity funds and an advisor to others. I am frequently asked to look at businesses and offer opinions from an operational perspective. I also have served on several boards of directors.由于这些职位，我在卖方、并购和融资方面拥有数十亿美元的经验。我知道如何运营流程以及如何买卖公司。我已成为私人股本基金的投资者和他人的顾问。我经常被要求从运营的角度审视业务并提出意见。我还担任过几个董事会的董事。
I think one of the keys to my success is that I recognize that service isn’t tangible. Service isn’t a product that can be stored in a box and put on a shelf. It’s more about relationships and interactions, doing right by customers, and conducting business at the human level. The commonality between the three companies where I’ve been president is that they’re service driven. My focus has always been on people and building company culture. A strong, people-oriented culture inspires an engaged workforce. Staff do their best work when they like what they’re doing, enjoy their workplace, and feel supported. That’s the kind of company culture that takes care of its customers.我认为我成功的一个关键是，我认识到服务是无形的。服务不是一种可以储存在盒子里、放在架子上的产品。它更多的是关于关系和互动，正确对待客户，以人性化方式开展业务。在我担任总裁的三家公司中，有一个共同点，那就是以服务为导向。我的重点一直是人和公司文化建设。以人为导向的强大文化可以激励员工敬业。当员工喜欢自己所做的事情，喜欢自己的工作场所，并感到自己受到支持时，他们会尽最大努力工作。这就是那种照顾客户的公司文化。
The Growth of Private Equity私募股权投资的增长 Along with my own professional growth, there’s also been growth in the field of private equity. At the end of 1990, there were 312 private equity firms in existence. By the end of 2017, that number had grown to 5,391 firms with current assets under management totaling $2.83 trillion.随着我自己的职业发展，私募股权领域也在不断发展。1990年底，现有312家私募股权公司。到2017年底，这一数字已增至5,391家，目前管理的资产总额达到2.83万亿美元。 With all those firms chasing deals, it’s no surprise that since 2006, there have been more than 43,000 private equity-backed company buyouts with an aggregate deal value of $4.249 trillion globally—more than half of those occurring in North America.*由于有这么多公司在追逐交易，自2006年以来，全球有超过43,000家私人股本支持的公司收购交易，总交易价值为4.249万亿美元，其中一半以上发生在北美。*
Josh is the CEO of a middle-market company and is contemplating selling his business to private equity. He started out as a plumber and drove his own truck. His empire grew over a twenty-year period, and now he has 500 trucks crisscrossing multiple states. Josh is wealthy and is looking to his future. He’s received phone calls from private equity firms looking for potential platform companies to buy. He doesn’t know a lot about private equity but wonders if it’s a viable future and exit strategy. He’s asking: What’s next? Do I sell this company and cash out my chips? Do I keep on going? How does my future play out? Do my children take over the business? How do I get my wealth out?乔希是一家中等规模公司的首席执行官，正在考虑将公司出售给私募股权公司。他最初是一名水管工，自己开着卡车。他的帝国在二十年的时间里不断壮大，现在他拥有500辆卡车，穿梭于多个州。乔希很富有，正在考虑自己的未来。他接到了私募股权公司的电话，这些公司正在寻找潜在的平台公司进行收购。他对私募股权知之甚少，但想知道这是否是一个可行的未来和退出策略。他问道：接下来怎么办？我应该卖掉公司，兑现我的筹码吗？我应该继续前进吗？我的未来会怎样？我的孩子会接管公司吗？我如何兑现我的财富？
Rose is a Fortune 500 mid-level career executive. She has had a good run so far, and she’s starting to get calls from recruiters looking for a CEO or COO in a private equity-backed middle-market company. They want to know if she’s interested in applying. Rose is struggling because she doesn’t know if this is a good career decision. She wants to rise in her career, but she’s asking: Is private equity the right way to go? How do I evaluate private equity-backed companies? What are the factors to consider? Is it just about money?罗斯是一家《财富》500强企业的中层职业经理人。到目前为止，她的职业生涯一直很顺利，现在她开始接到猎头公司的电话，这些猎头公司正在物色一家私人股本投资公司的中端市场公司的首席执行官或首席运营官人选，他们想知道罗斯是否有兴趣应聘。罗斯很纠结，因为她不知道这是否是一个好的职业决定。她希望自己的事业更上一层楼，但她也在问自己：私人股本公司是正确的选择吗？我该如何评估私人股本投资公司？我需要考虑哪些因素？仅仅是为了钱吗？

1. The Field

I liken a private equity fund to a mutual fund. A private equity fund, by its very nature and name, is private. It aggregates capital from a number of sources: primarily pension funds, wealthy families, individuals, and companies that have meaningful assets available for investment. Depending on the size of the fund, it is typical for an established firm to have a minimum investment size of $5 million. These funds are then used to purchase companies or buy a stake in a company.我将私募股权基金比作共同基金。从本质和名称上看，私募股权基金属于私人性质的资金集合体。它的资金来源多种多样，主要包括养老基金、富裕家庭、个人以及拥有可投资资产的企业。根据基金规模的不同，通常情况下，正规私募股权基金的最小投资额为500万美元。这些资金随后会被用来收购企业或购买企业的股份。 People who invest in a private equity fund are called limited partners. Limited partners have no decision-making authority over the private equity firm or the investments made by the fund. The private equity firm serves as the general partner and has total control over the funds’ investments. Limited partners pledge capital for a specified amount of time, generally the life of the fund and thus cannot buy and sell on a whim. There generally is no liquidity, and a private equity fund typically has a charter, or a life span, of ten years. This means you’re committing capital for a period of up to ten years. (Note: it’s typical for funds to have built in, up to two, one-year extensions that don’t require further approval of limited partners, so the money could actually be locked up for as long as twelve years.)投资于私募股权基金的人被称为有限合伙人。有限合伙人对私募股权基金本身及其所进行的投资没有决策权。私募股权基金则担任普通合伙人的角色，对基金的投资拥有完全控制权。有限合伙人需在规定的时间内投入资本，通常这个时间与基金的存续期相同，因此他们不能随意买卖基金份额。这类投资通常不具备流动性，而且私募股权基金的运作期限通常为十年。这意味着投资者需要将资金投入最多十年的时间。需要注意的是，这类基金通常设有最长为两年的延期机制，无需再经过有限合伙人的批准，因此资金实际可能被锁定的时间最长可达十二年。
Limited Partners Supply Capital有限合伙人提供资本 The way a private equity fund starts investing is by issuing capital calls for the money it needs from limited partners. Here’s an example.私募股权基金开始投资的方式是向有限合伙人募集所需资金。以下是一个例子。 You are an investor in a small private equity firm’s fund that is $100 million in size. You commit $1 million to the fund, or 1 percent. You don’t invest that money up front; rather, you’ve committed the capital, and as the fund seeks investments, it will issue a capital call when it needs the money.你是一家规模为1亿美元的小型私募股权基金的投资者，你向该基金投入了100万美元，即1%的出资额。你并非一次性支付全部款项，而是先承诺提供这笔资金；随后，当基金需要资金进行投资时，会向你发出资金募集请求。 The private equity firm decides to purchase a company that has $4 million of EBITDA—discussed further in chapter 9, “EBITDA” (pronounced as three syllables: e-bit-dah) is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The firm buys this company for 8x EBITDA, or 8x $4 million, for an enterprise value of $32 million. Typically, when a private equity firm buys a company, they use the maximum amount of leverage or debt the cash flow of the company allows. In this example, we will use 5x leverage, so 5x EBITDA is $20 million of debt financing, leaving another $12 million of equity from that $100 million fund needed to complete the purchase. The fund issues a capital call, and as a 1-percent limited partner, you get a call that states you need to send $120,000, which is 1 percent of the $12 million of equity needed. This is the pro rata portion of the equity needed by the firm to purchase the company.这家私募股权公司决定收购一家EBITDA值为400万美元的公司。关于EBITDA的详细内容将在第9章“EBITDA”中进一步阐述。EBITDA指的是息税折旧及摊销前利润。该公司以8倍的EBITDA倍数进行收购，即8乘以400万美元，最终收购成本为3200万美元。通常情况下，私募股权公司在收购企业时会充分利用该企业的现金流所能承受的最大杠杆比率或债务规模。在本例中，我们假设杠杆倍数为5倍，因此5倍的EBITDA相当于2000万美元的债务融资；用于完成此次收购的1亿美元资金中，另有1200万美元为股权出资。该基金发出了资金募集通知。作为持有1%股权的有限合伙人，你会收到通知，要求你缴纳12万美元——这笔金额相当于所需1200万美元股本的1%。这实际上就是该公司为完成收购所需股本中的相应份额。
Private Equity Means No Liquidity私募股权意味着缺乏流动性。 The private equity fund is made up of people committed to providing capital. They’ve signed up for it. They may not get their money back for ten years or more. The firm makes investments and issues capital calls to the limited partners. As a limited partner, you send in your portion to meet the demand for the cash that’s needed at the time. Because it’s private, there’s no liquidity, and a limited partner has no decision power. There’s no way to get your capital back on demand. This is typically why investment sizes are large. Private equity firms are not geared to handle nonaccredited investors who may need to get their money out quickly.这家私募股权基金由那些愿意提供资金的人组成——他们自愿加入该基金。他们可能要等十年甚至更长时间才能拿回自己的投资本金。该基金会进行投资，并向有限合伙人筹集资金。作为有限合伙人，你需要缴纳自己应承担的出资额，以满足基金当时所需的资金需求。由于这种投资属于私募性质，因此不具备流动性，且有限合伙人没有决策权；投资者也无法随时取回自己的投资资金。正因为如此，通常这些投资的规模都相当庞大。私募股权基金并不适合那些需要快速取回资金的非合格投资者。
The return of capital happens over time. Anytime a private equity fund sells a company or refinances for the purpose of creating a distribution, it returns capital to its limited partners. Using the same example as above, let’s say the company is sold five years later. Instead of the $4 million of EBITDA when it was purchased, the company now has $12 million of EBITDA. Earnings increased 3x over a five-year period. The company is sold for the same 8x multiple, only now the enterprise value is $96 million for something that they paid $32 million for five years earlier. That $20 million in original debt financing plus perhaps another $40 million in additional debt and transaction expenses (from buying add-on companies, legal fees, diligence fees, investment banker fees, and carried interest fees) leaves $36 million in equity remaining. As a 1-percent limited partner, you now receive a distribution from the fund for 1 percent or $360,000.资本的返还是一个渐进的过程。每当私募股权基金出售某家公司或进行再融资以便向有限合伙人分配收益时，它便实现了对资本的返还。仍以上述例子为例，假设五年后该公司被出售。此时该公司的EBITDA金额已从收购时的400万美元增长至1200万美元，五年间盈利水平提升了三倍。该公司仍以8倍的市盈率被出售，只不过此时的企业价值达到了9600万美元——而五年前他们仅为这家公司支付了3200万美元。 2000万美元的初始债务融资费用，再加上可能另需支付的4000万美元的额外债务费用及交易相关开支（包括收购相关公司的费用、律师费、尽职调查费、投资银行服务费以及附带权益费用），这样一来，剩余的股本金额就只有3600万美元了。作为持有1%股权的有限合伙人，你现在可以从该基金中获得1%的收益，即36万美元。 The initial investment was $120,000, but your distribution five years later, net of fees, is $360,000 or a 3x multiple of invested capital (MOIC)—discussed further in chapter 2.初始投资金额为120,000美元，但五年后的收益在扣除相关费用后为360,000美元，相当于投资额的3倍——这一投资回报倍数将在第2章中进一步详细阐述。 This example shows how a private equity fund receives and distributes money. The capital calls are fulfilled as the fund makes purchases, not up front. In this case, the distribution from the fund back to the limited partner occurred five years after the initial capital call when the purchased company was sold.这个例子说明了私募股权基金是如何筹集及分配资金的。资金的筹集是在基金进行投资时完成的，而非事先预付。在本例中，基金将收益分配给有限合伙人是在首次筹集资金五年后，也就是所投资的公司被出售的时候。
Life Span of a Private Equity Fund私募股权基金的存续期 In the early years of a new private equity fund, the fund will be buying companies that become platforms for growth and will require further investments during their hold period. These are the anchor holdings of the new fund. Some private equity groups state a time limit in their fund’s limited partnership agreement that essentially says all platforms have to be bought within the first six or seven years. Others don’t include the time limit; typically, the hold period in private equity for each portfolio company purchased by the fund is three to seven years, with five being a good average for general planning purposes.在一家新成立的私募股权基金成立初期，该基金会购买那些能够作为增长平台的公司，并且在这些公司被持有的期间需要继续进行投资。这些公司就是该新基金的核心投资对象。一些私募股权机构会在其有限合伙协议中设定时间限制，要求必须在成立后的六到七年内完成所有相关收购。也有一些机构并不设定时间限制；通常情况下，私募股权基金对所收购的每家公司的持有期限为三到七年，从整体规划的角度来看，五年是一个较为合适的期限。 As soon as the fund buys a platform company, they go about the business of trying to grow that platform. There are many different levers for growth that we’ll talk about later in the book.一旦该基金收购了一家平台企业，他们便会着手努力发展这家平台。关于实现增长的各类方法，我们将在本书后面部分进行详细探讨。 In the later stages of the fund, the private equity firm works to sell off the remaining assets of the fund. It all works within the ten-year limited partnership agreement that asks for money from the limited partners up front as platform companies are bought, begins to return the money as they are sold, and by the end of the funds term, has returned all capital—plus earnings and less fees—to the limited partners.在基金的后期阶段，这家私募股权机构会努力出售基金剩余的资产。整个流程均遵循那份为期十年的有限合伙协议：在收购相关企业时，有限合伙人需预先支付资金；随后随着这些企业被出售，私募股权机构会开始返还这些资金；在基金期限结束时，所有本金以及相应的收益和扣除费用后的剩余款项都将返还给有限合伙人。
Reporting Requirements报告要求 During the fund’s life, there are reporting requirements to the limited partners. Let’s call it a score card. Typically, a quarterly financial report is sent out to discuss the funds: where the money has been invested, what capital has been returned, and the current value of invested funds.在基金运营期间，需要向有限合伙人提交相关报告，这些报告可以被视为一种“绩效评估表”。通常会定期发送季度财务报告，向有限合伙人说明资金的使用情况、已返还的出资额以及现有投资资金的价值。 Most firms hold an annual meeting with the limited partners of a specific fund, especially if it’s a large private equity shop that has multiple funds ongoing. The firm gets the limited partners together and presents information about the companies that have been purchased and sold by the fund. They may even bring in some CEOs to speak and/or answer questions about individual portfolio companies.大多数机构都会定期为特定基金的有限合伙人召开年度会议，尤其是那些同时管理多支基金的大型私募股权公司。在这些会议上，机构会向有限合伙人汇报该基金所收购及出售的公司的相关情况。有时这些公司的高管也会被邀请到场，就旗下被投资企业的具体情况进行演讲或回答相关问题。
Common Fund Types and Strategies常见的基金类型与投资策略 Private equity firms can invest in various types, styles, and strategies. Here are a few of the more popular fund types and styles typically found in the world of private equity.私募股权基金可以投资于各种不同类型、投资风格及投资策略的项目。以下是私募股权领域中较为常见的几种基金类型与投资风格。
Buyout Fund收购基金 A buyout fund purchases a controlling stake in a company, typically a more mature and established business. Buyout funds tend to have a higher batting average than a venture capital fund, but there are more singles and doubles than home runs. Majority ownership means just that. The entrepreneur who sells the company no longer controls the business and now has a boss for the first time. For the last twenty years, the entrepreneur got to make the decisions, but now he has a partner with a controlling stake, and that partner can fire or replace him. It’s a different dynamic. Buyout funds are the most popular style of private equity funds and the primary focus of this book. For both Josh and Rose, this is where the action is!收购基金会购买一家公司的控股权，这类公司通常较为成熟、经营稳定。与风险投资基金相比，收购基金的成功率通常更高，但其中“二垒安打”和“三垒安打”的数量要多于“本垒打”。拥有控股权意味着卖方不再能掌控公司，反而首次有了上司。在过去的二十年里，企业主可以独自做出所有决策，但现在他有了一个持有控股权的合作伙伴，而这个合作伙伴有权解雇他或替换他。这种局面完全不同了。收购基金是私募股权基金中最常见的一种类型，也是本书的主要研究对象。对乔希和罗斯来说，这才是真正的“精彩之处”所在！ Venture Capital Fund风险投资基金 A venture capital fund makes small minority stake investments, typically to small, early stage emerging businesses. An entrepreneur comes in and pitches an idea, looking to sell a small stake in the company. They have a low batting average, but when they do make a hit, it’s a big win. It’s a little bit more risk with a little bit higher volatility, and the hope is big wins offset the losses. Typically, in a minority stake investment, the CEO or the company retains most of the control, but the venture capital fund is protected through operating agreements or a shareholder agreement. They may have a say in terms of additional equity coming in, or the timing of an exit, or in controlling the capital they’re investing, even if they don’t have a controlling stake. Venture capital funds are investors in ideas that show potential, whereas buyout funds are more buyers of established companies with a proven track record.风险投资基金通常会进行少量股权投资，目标对象往往是处于早期发展阶段的小型企业。企业家会带着自己的创业想法前来寻求投资，希望出售一部分公司股权。这类投资的成功率较低，但一旦成功，带来的收益往往非常可观。这种投资方式风险略高，波动性也较大，但人们期望通过一次大的成功来弥补之前的损失。一般来说，在这种少量股权投资中，公司的首席执行官或管理层仍会掌握大部分控制权，而风险投资基金则通过运营协议或股东协议来保障自身的利益。他们或许有权对新增股权的注入、退出时机，以及所投资资本的运作方式进行决策——即便他们并不持有控股权。风险投资基金投资的是具有潜力的创新项目，而收购基金则更倾向于收购那些已有良好业绩记录的成熟企业。 Fund of Funds基金中的基金 A fund of funds is similar to the concept of a stand-alone mutual fund. A fund of funds takes money in and then invests in several other private equity funds. It allows someone who is making an investment in private equity to diversify and become an owner of several different private equity funds simultaneously.基金中的基金类似于独立型共同基金的概念。这种基金会募集资金，然后投资于多只其他私募股权基金。对于那些投资于私募股权领域的人来说，这种方式能够实现投资多元化，使他们同时成为多只不同私募股权基金的持有人。 Debt Funds债务基金 Some large private equity firms have private debt funds that loan money to private equity-backed portfolio companies. These funds may be used as a part of the leveraged debt structure used by private equity firms to acquire portfolio companies, provide acquisition financing, or to fund operating lines of credit. Private equity firms with debt funds generally never loan money to their own portfolio companies due to the obvious conflicts of interest that would result.一些大型私募股权机构拥有专门用于向其投资的企业提供贷款的私人债务基金。这些基金常被私募股权机构用作杠杆融资工具，用于收购目标企业、提供收购资金，或为企业的运营提供资金支持。不过，拥有此类债务基金的私募股权机构通常不会向自己投资的企业提供贷款，因为这会引发明显的利益冲突。 Pooled Coinvesting联合投资 Sometimes private equity funds will pool together to buy a company that is larger than their typical investment size and allows them to extend their reach. When this happens, one firm will have a controlling stake and one will take the minority stake. Or they create an operating agreement that lets them share in decision making based on the size of the investments that were made.有时，私募股权基金会联合起来收购规模超出其常规投资范围的企业，从而扩大自身的业务影响力。在这种情况下，其中一家基金会持有控股权，另一家则持有少数股权。或者，这些基金会会签订一份运营协议，根据各自的投资额来决定决策权的分担方式。 Limited Partner Coinvesting有限合伙人联合投资 Oftentimes, as a means of rewarding an important limited partner, a firm will let that partner come in and make a separate investment. They could be an investor in the fund and then also make a coinvestment in a specific platform company directly. This gives the limited partner the chance to have additional skin in the game. I once ran a company that had three different limited partners who coinvested in the business alongside the private equity fund. It was a larger than normal investment for the private equity firm and additional capital was needed, so they looked to limited partners to bridge the gap.通常，作为奖励重要有限合伙人的方式，公司会允许该合伙人另行进行投资。他们既可以作为该基金的投资者，同时也可以直接对某个特定的平台公司进行再投资。这样一来，有限合伙人就能更有动力为企业的成功出力。我曾经管理过一家公司，该公司有三位有限合伙人，他们与私募股权基金一起对该企业进行了再投资。对这家私募股权基金而言，这笔投资规模属于较大的项目，因此需要额外的资金支持，于是他们便寻求有限合伙人的帮助来填补资金缺口。 Operating the Private Equity Firm运营私募股权公司 All private equity firms try to be unique in some way, shape, or form because they are competing for the same pool of limited partner capital. They want to be just different enough for someone to invest with them versus another, and so they all have slightly different focuses. They can be huge, like Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, or KKR, with more than a thousand employees, individual fund sizes ranging from $10 billion to $20 billion, and several types and flavors of funds ongoing at the same time. Or they can be small, boutique-sized firms with only a handful of employees, funds sizes of less than $100 million, and only one or two active funds making and holding investments at a time.所有私募股权公司都试图在某种程度上保持独特性，因为它们都在争夺同样的有限合伙人资本。它们希望自身具备足够的差异性，从而吸引投资者选择它们而非其他公司。因此，各家公司的业务重点略有不同。有些公司规模庞大，如Apollo、Blackstone、Carlyle和KKR，员工人数超过一千人，管理着规模在100亿美元至200亿美元之间的基金，同时运营着多种类型的基金产品。也有一些公司规模较小，属于精品型私募股权机构，员工仅有寥寥数人，管理的基金规模不足1亿美元，且同时只有一两只基金在运作并进行投资。 There are pros and cons to the different types of funds and strategies for investing. Limited partners must do their own diligence to decide where to invest.不同类型的基金及投资策略各有优缺点。有限合伙人必须自行进行尽职调查，才能决定将资金投向何处。
Small Firms小型企业 Small firms typically invest out of one active fund at a time but will start to raise the next fund when the existing fund has deployed approximately 70 percent of its capital. In this fashion, it may have two funds at different life stages with holdings at one time. Limited partners don’t want the small private equity firm distracted by raising too many funds at once. Limited partners want the firm’s smaller number of investment professionals focused on managing its platform companies versus raising capital. The ultimate goal for any private equity firm, big or small, is not to run out of committed capital available to invest. They always want to have money available to make new platform investments. Some firms insert a guideline within the limited partnership agreement that allows them to raise new funds as previous funds reach a certain percentage of capital deployed.小型私募股权公司通常一次只投资于一只基金，而当现有基金的使用资金达到约70%时，才会开始募集下一只基金。这样一来，该公司可能会同时拥有处于不同投资阶段的两只基金。有限合伙人不希望这家小型私募股权公司因同时募集过多基金而分心；他们希望该公司数量有限的投资专业人士能专注于管理其投资组合中的企业，而非专注于筹集资金。对于任何规模的私募股权公司而言，最终目标都是确保有足够的可用资金用于投资。它们始终需要有资金来支持新的投资项目。有些公司会在有限合伙协议中设定相关条款，允许其在前期基金的使用资金达到一定比例时再募集新基金。 Large Firms大型企业 Large firms have offices across the globe, and their teams include hundreds of investment professionals who specialize in specific areas or types of investments. They typically have multiple funds and fund types all operating at the same time. They might be split into styles and by verticals—technology, industrial, health care, education, infrastructure, growth—and they have adequate resources (people) to manage multiple funds at a time.大型企业在全球各地都设有办事处，其团队由数百名投资专业人士组成，这些专业人士分别专注于特定的投资领域或投资类型。这类企业通常同时运营多只基金，且这些基金属于不同的类型。这些基金可能根据投资风格或行业领域进行分类，比如科技、工业、医疗保健、教育、基础设施、成长型产业等；同时，这些企业拥有足够的资源（人力）来同时管理多只基金。
How the Private Equity Firm Makes Money私募股权公司是如何盈利的 Going back to our mutual fund example, oftentimes when you invest in an actively managed mutual fund there are management fees associated with that fund. Private equity acts in the same way. They typically charge a management fee of about 2 percent. Management fees are how private equity firms cover their overhead, not how they generate wealth.再回到共同基金的例子上，通常当你投资于主动管理的共同基金时，需要支付相应的管理费。私募股权基金的运作方式也是如此，它们通常会收取约2%的管理费。管理费是私募股权公司用来支付运营成本的，而非用来创造财富的手段。 They generate their wealth through carried interest. Limited partners typically pay 20 percent of every dollar of profit back to the private equity firm. If as a limited partner you have $1 million invested, you’re being charged a 2 percent management fee every year for the capital that’s invested, and then when they sell a company, you pay 20 percent carried interest on the profit. Typically, there is a minimum rate of return that limited partners must receive, called the preferred return, before the general partner (the private equity firm) can charge carried interest and collect the fee.他们通过获取附带权益来创造财富。有限合伙人通常需要将每1美元利润中的20%返还给私募股权公司。如果你作为有限合伙人投资了100万美元，那么每年你需要为所投入的资金支付2%的管理费；而当该公司被出售时，你还需从利润中缴纳20%的附带权益。通常情况下，有限合伙人必须获得一定的最低回报率，这一回报率被称为“优先回报率”；只有达到这一标准后，普通合伙人（即私募股权公司）才能收取附带权益和管理费。 Let’s go back to the example of providing $120,000 of capital. When you got the $360,000 back, that included $240,000 of net profit. The carried interest charge, 20 percent, goes to the private equity firm and was already deducted prior to the distribution. That is their profit and where wealth is generated within the private equity world.让我们回到那个提供12万美元资金的例子。当你收回36万美元时，其中24万美元是净利润。20%的附带权益费用归私募股权公司所有，而且在资金分配之前就已经被扣除了。这就是他们的利润，也是私募股权行业中财富得以创造的地方。 These firms also invest in their funds. Limited partners want to know that the people working to invest their money have skin in the game. Therefore, private equity firms will create a subfund so their employees can invest their own money and coinvest alongside the fund every time the fund buys a platform company.这些公司也会对自己的基金进行投资。有限合伙人希望确保那些负责管理他们资金的人真正与投资结果息息相关。因此，私募股权公司会设立子基金，让员工也能用自己的资金进行投资，并在基金收购相关企业时与基金共同出资。
Private Equity Evolution私募股权的发展历程 There is an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Pioneering firms had such massive success that it fueled the growth of more than 5,000 copycats over the last three decades. As a result, it should come as no surprise that the collective deal activity touching private equity has exploded right along with it. During the 1980s, less than 1 percent of merger and acquisition activity involved private equity. Today, it is estimated by EisnerAmper, in their 4Q 2018 PE Insights Report, that approximately 35 percent of all mergers and acquisitions completed in the United States in 2018 involved private equity and that within five years, that number is expected to eclipse the 50-percent mark.有句古老的谚语说：“模仿是最真诚的奉承。”那些先驱企业的巨大成功催生了过去三十年间五千多家模仿者的出现。因此，私募股权相关交易活动的激增也就不足为奇了。20世纪80年代，仅有不到1%的并购交易涉及私募股权。根据EisnerAmper在2018年第四季度发布的《私募股权市场洞察报告》，2018年美国发生的所有并购交易中约有35%涉及私募股权；预计五年后这一比例将超过50%。
Understanding the game is the key to making good decisions and navigating these opportunities successfully.理解游戏规则是做出正确决策、成功把握这些机会的关键。

2. The Rules

Gauging a Fund’s Success衡量一只基金的成功与否 Because you now have skin in the game, it matters whom you partner with! Some firms and funds perform better than others, so it’s important to know the metrics that help limited partners gauge the potential success of each private equity firm’s funds. History is never a guarantee of future success, but it can directionally be an indicator.既然你现在也参与了这场游戏，那么与谁合作就显得至关重要了！有些公司和基金的表现确实优于其他机构，因此了解那些能够帮助有限合伙人评估各类私募基金成功潜力的评估指标十分重要。过去的表现虽然不能保证未来的成功，但至少可以作为参考依据。
Distributions to Paid in Capital对实缴资本的分配 The final ranking is distributions to paid in capital (DPI).最终排名依据的是对实缴资本的分配情况。 The DPI measures the ratio of money that is distributed by the fund against the total amount of money paid into the fund. At the beginning of a fund, DPI is zero. As distributions are made, the fund breaks even with a DPI of one. DPI is more useful when comparing new or active funds of the same vintage, as the DPI will ultimately be near or equal to the MOIC after a fund is fully matured. On an active fund, the DPI showcases the velocity of how fast the fund is returning money to shareholders at the various stages of its ten-year life span.DPI衡量的是基金分配出的资金与投资者投入基金的总金额之间的比例。在基金成立之初，DPI值为零；随着资金开始被分配出去，当DPI值达到1时，基金便实现了盈亏平衡。在比较同一成立时间段的新兴基金或活跃基金时，DPI指标更为实用——因为当基金完全成熟后，其DPI值通常会接近或等于MOIC值。对于活跃基金而言，DPI反映了其在十年生命周期内不同阶段向股东返还资金的速度。
Full and Accurate Measure完整准确的衡量标准 These three measurements are somewhat interrelated. Limited partners use all three to come up with an opinion about the private equity firm, how a current fund is performing, and how the firms’ historic funds have performed in the past. IRR is most important, MOIC is next, and then last comes DPI.这三项指标之间存在一定的关联性。有限合伙人会综合运用这三项指标来形成对这家私募股权公司的评价，包括当前管理的基金表现如何，以及该公司过往管理的基金业绩如何。其中内部收益率最为重要，其次是投资回报倍数，最后才是资金使用率。

3. The Players

Chapter 1, “The Field,” discussed the history and growth of private equity. Chapter 2, “The Rules,” discussed how limited partners think about private equity, decide where to put their money to work, and what ratings to evaluate. Now it’s time to discuss the players. Who are these private equity firms and fund managers?第一章“行业背景”探讨了私募股权的发展历程与增长趋势；第二章“运作规则”分析了有限合伙人是如何看待私募股权的，他们如何决定将资金投向何处，以及会参考哪些评价标准来做出决策。现在，是时候来探讨那些参与这一领域的主体了——这些私募股权公司和基金经理究竟是谁呢？ The first thing to note is that private equity is a young player’s game. It’s a very intense world. But if you understand these players, how they’re measured, what success looks like to them internally, and what their needs are, you’ll know how to play the game.首先需要注意的是，私募股权行业其实是一个适合新手参与的行业。这个行业的竞争异常激烈。但如果你能够了解这些参与者的运作方式、他们用来衡量自身表现的标准、在他们自己看来什么是成功，以及他们的真正需求是什么，那么你就会知道该如何在这个行业中取得成功。
Not only will you know how to play the game, but you’ll also play on a much more advanced level because you’ll have a base of understanding.你不仅会知道如何玩这个游戏，还会以更高的水平来参与游戏，因为你已经具备了相应的理解基础。
The Senior-Level Players那些处于高水平的玩家 I equate these positions to a sports team manager. The senior players hold titles of partners or managing directors—although there’s no real functional difference between the titles.我将这些职位比作运动队的教练。那些经验丰富的资深员工被授予“合伙人”或“执行董事”之类的头衔，不过这些头衔在实际职责上并没有什么区别。 The partner or managing director has the most tenure—typically fifteen to twenty years or more of experience. They’ve been around the block, and they’re the deal guys. They’ve worked at all the different levels of private equity and now run the show. They’re the manager of the baseball team.这位合伙人或总经理的任职时间最长——通常拥有15到20年甚至更长的工作经验。他们经验丰富，是真正擅长处理各种事务的人。他们曾在私募股权领域的各个层级工作过，现在则负责整体管理工作。他们就如同棒球队的经理一样，负责整个团队的运作。 This role is the interface to the CEO of the private equity-backed company. Whether you are Josh or Rose, you will most likely be working with the partner or managing director of the private equity firm, as these are the people who make the decisions.这个职位实际上是连接这家由私募股权基金支持的公司与其首席执行官之间的桥梁。无论你是Josh还是Rose，你都很可能会与这家私募股权基金的合伙人或总经理合作，因为真正拥有决策权的人正是这些人。
So what does this role do? They have control. The partner or managing director has the authority to tell the CEO what to do and is often appointed as the chairman of the board. It’s often through using the board construct that the chairman exercises their control and so, in essence, is now the CEO’s boss. They make the hire/fire decisions on the CEO and often influence those decisions on senior staff. Internally, they’re also the ones who are responsible for the investment and portfolio company. Keep in mind that a private equity firm may have multiple funds active at one time, and each partner or managing director may have many portfolio companies beneath them. The firm that owns my current company has more than fifty portfolio companies that they currently oversee. The partners backed these investments and internally are on the hook to the firm’s senior leadership and to the limited partners who backed the fund.那么，这种角色究竟有什么作用呢？他们拥有控制权。合伙人或总经理有权告诉首席执行官该做什么，而且他们通常还会被任命为董事会主席。实际上，正是通过董事会这一架构，董事会主席才得以行使自己的控制权，因此从本质上来说，他们现在已经成为首席执行官的上级。他们负责决定是否聘用或解雇首席执行官，同时也常常会对高级管理人员的任免决定产生影响。在内部管理方面，他们还负责公司的投资事务以及管理旗下的投资企业。需要注意的是，一家私募股权公司可能同时运作多支基金，而每位合伙人或总经理也可能管理着众多的投资企业。拥有我目前所在这家公司的投资机构，目前负责监管着五十多家被投资企业。这些投资项目是由这些合伙人共同支持的，而在内部层面上，这些合伙人需要对这家机构的高层管理层以及那些为该基金提供资金的有限合伙人负责。
In large firms, there may be many partners who specialize based on verticals or specific roles. This specialist is like a pitcher on a baseball team. They do only one thing: throw the ball and hopefully strike out the batter. In small firms, the partner is a generalist who oversees any kind of company. This partner is a utility infielder who may play any position on the infield.在大型企业中，往往会有许多根据自身专业领域或具体职责来分工合作的合伙人。这些专家就像棒球队中的投手——他们的唯一职责就是投球，并尽力让击球手出局。而在小型企业中，合伙人通常会是通才，负责全面管理企业的各项事务；这类合伙人就像内场的多面手，可以在内场的任何位置上发挥作用。
The Mid-Level Players那些处于中等水平的玩家 At the mid-level of private equity firms, you have the principals or vice presidents. I equate these people to the first and third base coaches or the hitting and pitching coaches. They’re not the manager of the team, but they’re helping. With typically ten to fifteen years of experience or more, those in the mid-level positions help to manage the investment. They’re working toward becoming a partner or a managing director, and they are usually the secondary interface to the CEO.在私募股权公司的中层管理岗位上，通常会有一些负责人或副总裁。我认为这些人相当于棒球队中的一垒教练、三垒教练，或是负责打击训练与投球训练的教练。他们虽然不是团队的管理者，但会提供重要的协助。这些中层管理者通常拥有10到15年甚至更丰富的经验，他们负责协助管理各项投资事务。他们的目标通常是成为合伙人或总经理，而且他们通常也是CEO与团队之间沟通的桥梁。 As a CEO, a principal or vice president may call me but typically won’t give me specific instructions. That will come from a partner level. Instead, this level is more consultative and typically connects more directly with the CFO of the business. The mid-level player is responsible for providing the day-to-day oversight of the portfolio company, actively working, and doing a lot of heavy lifting, whereas the partner is responsible for the overall investment strategy. There’s a need for data and numbers to see how the investment is performing and how initiatives are doing. The mid-level player stays on top of this and reports back to the partner.作为首席执行官，总经理或副总裁可能会与我联系，但通常不会向我下达具体的指示。这些具体要求会由合作伙伴层面来提出。相比之下，合作伙伴更倾向于提供咨询意见，并且通常会与企业首席财务官直接沟通。中层管理人员负责对投资组合中的企业进行日常监管，积极开展工作并承担大量的实际工作；而合作伙伴则负责制定整体的投资策略。为了了解投资项目的运营情况以及各项计划的实施效果，我们需要各种数据和数字作为依据。中层管理人员会密切关注这些情况，并向合作伙伴汇报结果。
The Junior-Level Players初级水平的选手们 The junior-level players are the sports team scouts or statisticians. They’re called analysts or associates within the private equity firm, and they are typically early twenties in age, fresh out of top-tier undergraduate programs, and demonstrate very high potential. They don’t often connect directly with the CEO of the business; rather, they are a secondary interface to the CFO and have more of a direct interface with levels below the C-suite. They work with the controllers, directors, and VP of finance and are tasked with specific projects that are assigned by the principals or the vice presidents.这些初级职位的从业者实际上就是体育团队中的球探或数据分析师。在私募股权公司里，他们被称为分析师或助理，通常二十出头，刚从顶尖大学本科毕业，且展现出极高的潜力。他们并不经常直接与企业的首席执行官联系，而是作为首席财务官的辅助人员，与高层管理团队以下的其他层级人员有着更直接的沟通渠道。他们与财务总监、财务主管以及财务副总裁合作，负责执行那些由公司高层或副总裁分配给他们的具体项目。
When Josh sells his company, he hires an investment bank. That investment bank brings in private equity groups to take a look at the company, and they begin by modeling and doing research on the industry. The analyst does this research and starts to ask questions: What’s the industry like? Is it growing? Is it dying? How does it do in a recession? How does it do in a strong economy? The analysts build an investment model that determines how much a firm offers for the company.当乔希准备出售自己的公司时，他聘请了一家投资银行来协助此事。这家投资银行邀请了一些私募股权基金来评估这家公司，而这些私募股权基金首先会对相关行业进行深入研究。分析师们会进行各种调查，并提出一系列问题：这个行业目前的发展状况如何？它在不断增长吗，还是在逐渐萎缩？在经济衰退期间，这个行业的表现如何？而在经济繁荣时期呢？通过这些分析，分析师们会建立一个投资模型，从而确定各私募股权基金愿意为这家公司支付多少资金。
This role works ungodly hours. The associates or analysts inside a private equity firm often work sixty to eighty hours a week. Private equity people in general are all very highly educated with very high potential. They operate at a very advanced level in terms of financial analytics, but they don’t typically operate companies. Those senior players in the high-stakes world of private equity have an incessant need for data, and so the analysts or associates do the grunt work to help provide the answers required by their firms and limited partners.这个职业的工作时间长得离谱。私募股权公司里的助理或分析师们通常每周要工作60到80个小时。一般来说，私募股权行业的从业者都受过高等教育，具备极高的潜力；他们在财务分析方面具备非常高的专业水平，但通常并不负责直接运营企业。在私募股权这个高风险领域里，这些资深从业者对数据有着持续不断的需求，因此分析师或助理们就需要承担这些基础性工作，为他们的公司和有限合伙人提供所需的各类数据和分析结果。
Once a company is purchased, the analysts turn to the operating phases where they take the models and now help the management team execute. They also continue to analyze and answer questions. If something didn’t go the way they thought, they need to know what happened. What do they need to do to adjust the model? Are economic conditions changing? Is the company doing what they thought it would do? The models keep adjusting, and every quarter the firm reports back to the limited partners on how investments are performing. Analyst roles are very cyclical. Often junior analysts will work for a few years after getting their undergraduate degrees, then leave the private equity world to go back to get their advanced degrees before returning to pursue senior analyst roles in hopes of becoming a principal or vice president one day.一旦某家公司被收购，分析师们就会进入公司的运营阶段。在这一阶段，他们会运用这些模型来协助管理团队开展各项工作。同时，他们也会继续进行分析并解答各种问题。如果实际情况与他们的预期不同，他们就需要弄清楚究竟发生了什么，以及应该采取哪些措施来调整相关模型。比如，经济环境是否发生了变化？该公司是否按照他们的预期在运作？这些模型会不断被调整，而每季度公司都会向有限合伙人汇报各项投资的运营情况。分析师的职业发展具有很强的周期性：通常，刚取得本科学位的初级分析师会在工作几年后离开私募股权行业，去攻读更高层次的学位，之后再回来担任高级分析师，希望有朝一日能晋升为合伙人或副总裁。
For every fifty companies a private equity firm looks at, they might buy one of them. There are thousands of private equity firms looking at potential businesses to purchase. Out of those, thirty firms might get an investment book or a confidential information memorandum on a given company. Out of those thirty, ten firms might get a management meeting. Then the company goes up for a bid and rebid process. Multiple firms are left in the cold, even after spending an inordinate amount of time—and in some cases capital—doing diligence on potential investments in an attempt to determine what’s a good investment so that their fund does well over its life span.对于一家私募股权公司来说，每考察50家潜在投资对象，他们可能只会购买其中1家。有成千上万的私募股权公司都在寻找可供收购的目标企业。在这其中，大约有30家公司会收到关于某家特定企业的投资资料或保密信息备忘录；而在这30家公司中，又有10家会获得与该公司管理层会面的机会。随后，该企业会进入投标环节。即便一些公司投入了大量时间和资金来对潜在投资对象进行尽职调查，试图确定哪些才是值得投资的目标，以确保自己的基金能够在整个投资期限内取得良好的收益，但最终仍会有很多公司被排除在投资名单之外。
Almost all private equity firms in today’s world also have a network of experienced senior professionals from various industries and areas of functional expertise that they can tap into to help a portfolio company transform itself once it becomes a fund holding.在当今世界，几乎所有的私募股权公司都拥有一支由来自不同行业、具备各类专业技能的经验丰富的高级专业人士组成的团队。当被投资企业成为这些私募股权公司的投资对象后，这些专业人士就可以被调动起来，帮助这些企业实现自我转型。 Private equity firms exist to source, purchase, help improve, and sell companies using the capital of limited partners. The resources available vary by firm size and sophistication, but they are typically extensive and very helpful in creating shareholder value at the portfolio company level. Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance when working in a private equity-backed environment.私募股权公司的存在目的，就是利用有限合伙人的资金来寻找目标企业、购买这些企业，帮助它们提升经营绩效，然后再将其出售。不同私募股权公司的资源规模及专业能力各不相同，但一般来说，它们的资源都相当丰富，而且在帮助被投资企业创造股东价值方面能发挥重要作用。在从事由私募股权公司支持的项目时，千万不要害怕寻求帮助。
The Investment Banker投资银行家 There’s another key player on the field: the investment banker. The investment banker is an independent player who acts in the same way as a Realtor does in a home sale transaction. Most houses are bought and sold with the services of a Realtor. In the private equity world, most companies are bought and sold with the services of an investment banker.在市场上，还有另一位重要的参与者：投资银行家。投资银行家是一种独立的角色，他们的行为方式与房地产经纪人在进行房屋交易时的行为方式类似。在大多数情况下，房屋的买卖都是通过房地产经纪人的服务来完成的；而在私募股权领域，大多数公司的收购与出售也同样需要投资银行家的协助。 The investment banker works with the companies to help prepare them for sale, create marketing material, run a sales process, conduct management meetings, provide access to the management team, and handle the bidding, rebidding, and diligence process. In some cases, investment bankers help to raise the capital for the debt that’s required when buying a company. Investment bankers, like Realtors, often are hired by both buyers and sellers to help negotiate the mechanics of the sale or purchase.投资银行家会与企业合作，协助它们为出售做准备、制作营销材料、推进销售流程、组织管理会议、为企业管理层提供相关支持，并处理竞标、重新竞标以及尽职调查等相关事宜。在某些情况下，投资银行家还会帮助企业筹集购买企业所需的资金。与房地产经纪人类似，投资银行家往往也会同时受聘于买卖双方，协助他们协商交易的具体细节。 This player wears an independent jersey or acts in many ways as a paid referee. Investment banks cover expenses via project-specific retainers, but they earn a living through commissions on successfully seeing the transactions close. It is very rare for a private equity firm not to use an investment bank when buying or selling a company. There is a lesson to be learned here for Josh in that the fees paid are worth the price of admission! Just like private equity firms, investment banks come in all shapes and sizes. Investment banks often have specialties and sweet spots based on the size of the company being sold or purchased. Research is important to find the right Realtor, and the same premise is also true with investment banks.这位投资者会穿着独立的制服，或者在很多方面扮演着有偿中介的角色。投资银行会通过为特定项目支付的中介费来覆盖相关开支，但它们的主要收入来源则是从那些成功完成的交易中获得的佣金。对于私募股权公司来说，在买卖企业时不聘请投资银行的情况几乎是不存在的。对乔希来说，这里有一个重要的教训：这些所支付的费用确实物有所值！与私募股权公司一样，投资银行也存在着各种各样的形式和规模。根据被收购或出售企业的规模不同，投资银行往往也会在某些业务领域具有专长或优势。因此，进行充分的调研以找到合适的中介机构是非常重要的——对于投资银行而言，这一原则同样适用。
For Rose, when Fortune 500 employees are being recruited, it’s because there’s a need within an existing portfolio company that has been identified. The private equity firm works with the portfolio company’s leadership team to determine what new positions to fill and to evaluate existing positions where a talent upgrade is needed. Knowing who the players are will help you navigate the interview process more effectively. Ultimately, interviews will likely have multiple rounds and include some of the private equity players responsible for the investment.对罗斯来说，当一家财富500强企业的员工被招募进来时，那一定是因为其旗下某家被投资企业确实存在招聘需求。这家私募股权公司会与被投资企业的领导团队共同确定需要填补哪些新职位，同时也会评估那些需要提升人才素质的现有职位。了解相关人员的具体情况，有助于你更有效地应对面试过程。一般来说，面试通常会分为多轮进行，其中也会有一些负责此次投资的私募股权公司相关人员参与面试环节。 For Josh, it’s important to know and understand who the private equity players are because these people will become his partners during the typical three- to seven-year hold period. While analysts will come and go with regular frequency, the mid-level and senior-level guys will typically be with you for the entire hold period. Make sure you like them and can get along with them!对乔希来说，了解并认识那些私募股权领域的投资者是非常重要的，因为在这通常为三到七年的投资期内，这些人将会成为他的合作伙伴。虽然分析师们会频繁地更换，但那些中高层管理人员通常会一直与他合作到底。因此，你必须确保自己喜欢他们，并且能够与他们融洽地共事！

Part Two: Finding the Right Team

Armed with what you’ve learned in part 1, now you’re going to jump in and pick the right private equity firm to partner with. You’ll learn how to evaluate the private equity firms and how to navigate the equity structure, shareholder agreement, and employee contracts. You’ll also learn how to potentially create generational wealth by working with private equity over time.掌握了第一部分所学的知识后，你现在就可以着手挑选合适的私募股权公司进行合作了。你将学会如何评估这些私募股权公司，以及如何理解相关的股权结构、股东协议和员工合同。同时，你还会了解到如何通过长期与私募股权公司合作来创造可持续的财富。
If you’re like Josh, you will be looking beyond the financial offers to make sure that you’re partnering with a firm you work well with. You’re learning that it’s better to play long ball because you’ll be invested in the company’s growth and success. If you’re like Rose, you will also be looking at the firm’s culture, and you’ll be looking for ways you can invest in the portfolio company to see wealth beyond just your salary and bonus structure.如果你像乔希一样，你会超越单纯的财务待遇考量，确保自己能与一家能让自己高效工作的公司合作。你会意识到长期投入才是更明智的选择，因为这样你就能分享到公司的成长与成功带来的收益。而如果你像罗斯一样，你也会关注公司的企业文化，并寻找各种方式来投资于这些被投资企业，从而获得超出薪资和奖金之外的财富收益。

4. Evaluating Private Equity Firms

Their logical target market will typically be either a financial buyer like a private equity firm, or a strategic buyer, which is a larger company looking to expand through acquisitions. Once the transaction goes through, their typical success fees are between 1 percent and 3 percent of the sale price, with fees decreasing as the transaction size increases. Sometimes, on larger projects, private equity firms will hire two bankers who will then split the fees based on the work to be performed by each.他们的目标客户通常要么是私募股权公司等金融投资者，要么是那些希望通过收购来实现扩张的大型企业。交易完成后，他们的服务费通常为成交价格的1%至3%；而且交易金额越大，服务费就越低。在某些大型项目中，私募股权公司会聘请两名银行家，这两名银行家会根据各自承担的工作量来分摊服务费。 Note: Fee structures for advisors can vary widely, especially when the company being sold is small. On a small company sale, fees might more resemble that of a Realtor where 5–6 percent is more typical. Large company fees are typically as low as 1 percent, and sometimes a success fee includes an increased percentage for exceeding a certain price target or threshold.注意：顾问的费用结构可能存在很大差异，尤其是当被出售的公司规模较小时。在涉及小型企业的交易中，顾问费用通常类似于房地产经纪人的收费标准，即5%至6%较为常见。而对于大型企业的交易，顾问费用通常低至1%；此外，有时还会根据交易价格是否超过某个目标值来收取额外费用，这种额外费用的比例也会相应提高。
The investment banker or advisor you hire will help you market your company and find potential buyers. They will help you get the business ready for sale by creating marketing material, and then once ready, the process will begin. They will usually outreach to many potential buyers who get a short teaser to gauge level of interest.你聘请的投资银行家或顾问将帮助你推广你的公司并寻找潜在买家。他们会制作营销材料，帮助你的企业做好出售准备。一旦一切就绪，出售流程就会正式启动。他们通常会联系许多潜在买家，并向他们发送简短的介绍信息，以了解他们的购买意愿。
Initial conversations (known in the industry as “fireside chats”) may take place to generate interest with a select group of potential buyers. As the process unfolds, there could be upward of thirty buyers interested in your business. One or two of the interested parties could be strategic companies, larger than yours, who are seeking to purchase your company, but for the most part, it will be private equity groups. It’s important for you to know how to evaluate these firms. How do you find the right one? What constitutes the best potential partner to work with? The goal of this section is to help demystify the process of selling the company and to learn how to evaluate different private equity firms.最初的沟通环节（在业内被称为“非正式谈话”）旨在吸引一部分潜在买家。随着收购进程的推进，最终可能会有三十家以上企业对你的公司表现出兴趣。其中一两家可能是规模比你更大的战略投资公司，它们有意收购你的企业；但绝大多数情况下，这些买家将是私募股权基金。因此，你必须掌握评估这些机构的方法——如何挑选出合适的合作伙伴？什么样的合作伙伴才是最佳选择？本节的目的是帮助你了解公司出售的整个流程，并学会如何评估不同的私募股权基金。
Price Isn’t Everything价格并非决定一切的因素。
In today’s world, it’s fairly common to run a limited sale process. Gone are the days of sending out two hundred investment books to potential buyers. The more common approach now is to target a small group, of perhaps thirty potential buyers, by giving them marketing material—referred to as your “confidential information memorandum” (CIM). The CIM is a document that outlines the company being sold, its history, products and services, customers, financial performance, management team, and growth strategies. Out of thirty lookers, perhaps ten will submit an indication of interest (IOI). These ten will be given an opportunity to meet with some subset of your management team to receive a presentation about the company in person.在当今世界，开展有限的促销活动已经变得相当普遍。那种向潜在买家寄送两百份投资资料的做法早已过时。如今更常见的做法是针对一小群潜在买家——大概三十人——向他们提供营销资料，这种资料通常被称为“保密信息备忘录”。这份备忘录会详细介绍待售公司的基本情况，包括其历史、产品与服务、客户情况、财务表现、管理团队以及发展策略。在三十位潜在买家中，或许只有十人会表示出购买意向。这十人将有机会与公司的部分管理层会面，听取关于该公司的详细介绍。
Those ten potential buyers will most likely be asked to present refreshed bids as part of the sales process not too long after the management presentations are completed. It is common to see a separation in the offers. You’ll have the lead bidders who really want your company and offer the most money. Then you’ll have the rest of the pack. At this stage, ten interested parties will likely become two or three. The investment bank or advisor will work those buyers against each other to obtain maximum value. Soon after, you will receive one or more letters of intent that spell out salient terms of their purchase offer, and you are off and running!在管理层完成演示后不久，那十位潜在买家很可能会被要求重新提交报价。在报价过程中出现差异是很常见的现象：其中一些买家真正有意收购你的公司，并出价最高；而其余的买家则报价较低。到了这个阶段，最初的十位感兴趣的买家很可能会减少到两三个。投资银行或顾问会促使这些买家之间相互竞争，从而为卖方争取最大的利益。不久之后，你将会收到一封或多封意向书，其中明确列出了他们的购买条款，届时交易就可以正式开始了！
The Importance of Outside Counsel外部法律顾问的重要性 As I mentioned in the introduction, it is absolutely imperative that you engage competent legal counsel and tax advisors. Law, like practicing medicine, includes generalists and specialists. Buying and selling of companies is a specialty area of legal practice. You’ll find most regional and larger firms have separate practices for business law with lawyers who specialize in transactions.正如我在引言中提到的，聘请称职的法律顾问和税务专家至关重要。与医学领域一样，法律行业也存在通才与专家之分。企业收购与出售属于法律实务中的专门领域。你会发现，大多数地区性律师事务所及大型律师事务所都设有专门处理企业法律事务的部门，其律师专门从事相关交易事务。 While billing rates may be higher than a generalist, using a specialist is highly recommended when you are selling an asset as large and as important as your company. These lawyers are experts and very efficient at navigating the complex purchase agreements to be negotiated as a part of the transaction. Oftentimes, you’ll actually spend more per hour but less in total, because the experienced business lawyer will take less total time and deliver a more thoughtful, well-balanced document in the end. By the same token, using a competent accountant for tax advice can help you maximize the deal structure to limit your tax exposure and maximize the cash potential in the sale. Like attorneys, you don’t want to skimp on tax advice either! A top-tier accountant will pay for themselves in helping you plan for your windfall.虽然聘请专家的费用可能高于聘请普通律师的费用，但当你出售像你的公司这样重要且价值巨大的资产时，强烈建议聘请专家。这些律师是行业专家，非常擅长处理交易过程中需要协商的复杂购销协议。通常情况下，虽然每小时的费用可能更高，但总体花费反而会更少——因为经验丰富的商业律师能更快完成工作，并最终出具一份经过深思熟虑、内容均衡的文件。同样地，聘请一位称职的会计师提供税务咨询，也能帮助你优化交易结构，从而降低税务负担，并最大限度地发挥出售资产带来的现金收益。与聘请律师一样，提供税务咨询的服务也不容忽视！一位顶尖会计师通过帮助你规划这笔意外之财，其服务费用自然也就物有所值了。
Oftentimes, the business owner looks at price and picks the highest bid. If your goal is to sell and retire, this may be the right call to make. But if you care about your employees or are concerned about legacy, you may want to dive deeper into the potential buyers. You should also consider sticking around and not fully retiring. It can be very lucrative to partner with private equity. You’ll get subsequent paydays when today’s buyer sells three to seven years from now. It’s possible to get secondary paydays that potentially can be even larger than the first, and if you are staying, price isn’t the only important factor; rather, it’s how the relationship between you and the private equity firm will be managed after the sale.通常情况下，企业主会看价格，然后选择出价最高的买家。如果你的目标是卖掉企业后退休，那么这个选择或许没错。但如果你关心员工，或者希望企业能够延续下去，那么你就应该更深入地了解潜在买家的情况。此外，你也可以考虑继续留在企业里，而不完全退休。与私募股权机构合作往往能带来丰厚的收益——当今天的买家在三到七年后出售企业时，你还能获得后续收益。甚至有可能获得比初次收益还要多的二次收益。而且，如果你选择留下，价格就不是唯一重要的因素了；更重要的是买卖完成后你与私募股权机构之间的合作关系如何运作。
One thing to keep in mind for Josh: private equity firms may buy companies, but they invest in management teams. A motivated seller who wants to continue with the business is a positive for buyers. If your company is to become a platform investment, your staying on may in fact be critical to getting a deal done. Transitions are OK, but stability for some minimal amount of time is absolutely necessary. Having a strong second person in command who can take over for you can be helpful to your exit, whenever that time does come.乔希需要记住的一点是：私募股权公司虽然会收购企业，但他们真正投资的是企业的管理团队。如果卖家有积极性且希望继续经营企业，这对买家来说无疑是个有利因素。如果你的公司将成为私募股权投资的对象，那么你继续留任实际上对完成交易至关重要。企业过渡阶段是正常的，但至少在过渡期内保持稳定状态是绝对必要的。拥有一位能够接替你职位的得力副手，将有助于你在合适的时机实现退出。
The Hands-On, Hands-Off Meter既亲力亲为又不过度干涉的管理方式 Private equity firms run anywhere on the spectrum between full hands-on and full hands-off. I’ve worked with firms that are very hands-off, which means interactions were mostly limited to monthly phone calls to review financial performance and quarterly board meetings in person to delve deeper into how the business is performing and the various initiatives we were working on. The hands-off firm leaves me to run the business, and they mostly stay out of the day-to-day minutiae. That’s not to say they are out of the loop completely, just less intrusive. The private equity group consists of the financial experts, so they assist and add extreme value when it comes to capital structures and finance matters, but hands-off is more of a separation of expertise.私募股权基金在管理方式上呈现出从完全介入到完全不介入的多种状态。我曾与一些几乎不介入企业运营的基金合作，这种情况下，我们的沟通主要限于每月一次的电话会议，用于评估财务表现；此外还有每季度一次的面对面董事会会议，用于深入探讨企业运营状况以及我们正在推进的各项项目。这类基金不会干涉企业的日常运营细节，而是将决策权交给我们。这并不意味着他们完全不了解企业情况，只是他们的干预程度较低而已。私募股权团队由金融专家组成，他们在资本结构设计与财务事务方面能提供有力支持，发挥巨大价值；而这种不介入的管理方式，其实体现了不同专业领域之间的分工。
On the opposite end, you have the hands-on private equity group. In these instances, I have experienced weekly phone calls with a subset of the board of directors. They provide me with to-do lists. In essence, they want to tar my bat and put my helmet on my head and tell me which pitches I should swing at.另一方面，还有那些注重实际操作的私募股权机构。与这类机构合作时，我会每周与董事会的某些成员通电话。他们会给我提供待办事项清单。本质上，他们希望为我指明方向，告诉我该选择哪些投资机会。 Again, there’s no right or wrong; it’s just a matter of assessing what kind of private equity group you’re dealing with and if it’s a good fit. This is the time to be a little introspective about your own personality, how you like to operate, and how you want your future to look. There is an old saying among CEOs in private equity—“If your company isn’t performing, you are going to get lots of help. Want freedom and autonomy? Don’t require any help!”再次强调，没有对错之分，关键在于评估你所合作的私募股权机构是否适合你。此刻，你需要认真反思自己的性格特点、工作方式，以及你对未来的期望。私募股权行业的CEO们有句老话：“如果你的公司经营不善，你会得到很多帮助；但如果你追求自由与自主权，就别寻求任何帮助。”
If you’re Josh and you have a very strong-willed, entrepreneurial, type-A personality, where you say, “Nobody’s going to tell me how to run my damn business,” you will probably not thrive in a full hands-on environment. Whereas a person who likes a collaborative effort that provides encouragement will do well with a full hands-on firm. Rose, coming from the Fortune 500 world, is probably used to being constantly pushed to do her job. She’s used to a high level of rigor and interaction with her boss and may actually prefer the style of a more hands-on private equity partner, but she should still assess her individual style and determine how she works best with others. “What would constitute a good partner for me?”如果你是乔希，拥有极其坚强、具有创业精神且属于A型人格的人，那种认为“没人有资格指挥我如何经营自己的生意”的人，那么你可能无法在那种需要亲力亲为的工作环境中取得成功。而那些喜欢在合作中获得鼓励的人，则更适合在那种需要亲力亲为的工作环境中发挥作用。罗斯来自《财富》500强企业，她可能已经习惯了始终被督促去完成工作。她习惯了高强度的工作要求，也习惯了与上司频繁沟通交流。实际上，她可能更喜欢那种亲力亲为的私募股权合伙人的工作方式。不过，她仍然应该审视自己的个性特点，弄清楚自己与他人合作时最有效的方式是什么。“对我来说，什么样的合作伙伴才是理想的呢？”
What Else to Consider还需要考虑什么 Price is important. Key indicators are important. Hands-on, hands-off is important. So is your relationship with the key players. We’re not talking about the associate level, which may rotate in and out the door. Those relationships will change as the people change. But the principal or vice president, and partner or managing director, they won’t change during the course of the investment. These positions are more stable in the private equity firm, and these people will often be there for the entire length of the investment in the company, so it’s worth considering, do you like that person? Can you get along with them? Can you partner with and respect them for the next three to seven years?价格很重要，关键指标也同样重要。同时，采取主动还是被动的态度也很重要，而你与那些关键人物的关系同样重要。我们这里说的不是那些可能会频繁更换的基层员工；随着人员的变动，这些关系也会随之改变。但总经理、副总裁、合伙人或总经理这类职位在投资期间是不会发生变化的。在私募股权公司中，这些职位相对稳定，而且这些人在整个投资周期内通常都会留在公司里。因此，值得思考的是：你是否喜欢这个人？能否与他们相处融洽？在接下来的三到七年里，你是否能够与他们合作，并尊重他们？
An additional consideration is governance. It is typical for a private equity group to put governance instructions in place for a company that they own or operate. For Josh, it’s important to look at how tight the governance will be. Is he going to run the company as he used to, or is every decision now going to be micromanaged? If he has to now jump through hoops, he fails to have the autonomy to run and do things as in the past. Opportunities might be missed, leading to failed outcomes. The goal is to find a balance that allows the company to operate in the ordinary course without approval but brings in the input from the financial partner when appropriate. An example would be: the limit on what the CEO spends in ordinary course should be large enough to allow the CEO to operate the company. But if he’s approving an expense that is not ordinary course, paying bonuses to employees—including himself—giving raises to senior staff, or selling a large fixed asset, the board of directors may want to approve. Governance should never be a big issue. Rose will be accustomed to accountability, but for a former entrepreneur like Josh, there should be a discussion.另一个需要考虑的因素是公司治理结构。私募股权机构通常会为其拥有或经营的公司制定相应的治理规范。对乔希而言，关键在于了解这种治理结构的严格程度究竟如何——他是否还能像过去那样自主经营公司，还是现在每一项决策都需经过层层审批？如果他现在必须遵循繁琐的流程，那么他就无法再像过去那样拥有自主决策的权力，进而可能导致一些机会的流失，最终导致经营失败。我们的目标是要找到一种平衡点：既能让公司正常运转而无需事事经过审批，又能在适当的时候获得财务投资者的意见与支持。举个例子：对首席执行官日常开支的限制幅度应足够大，以确保其能够正常履行公司管理职责。然而，如果他批准的开支属于非日常性支出——比如向员工（包括他自己）发放奖金、给高级职员加薪，或者出售大型固定资产——那么董事会或许有必要对此进行审批。治理结构本不应成为什么大问题。罗斯早已习惯接受问责，但对于像乔希这样的前企业家而言，此类事项显然值得讨论。
Asking the Questions提出问题 Inevitably, during a meeting with a private equity group, there will be a portion of time dedicated to giving Josh an overview of the firm. As a part of this interaction, there will be an opportunity to ask questions of the firm. All too often, entrepreneurs stay silent, mostly because they simply don’t know what questions to ask. Don’t stay silent!在与私募股权机构的会议中，不可避免地会有一段时间用于向乔希介绍该机构的概况。在这段交流过程中，大家会有机会向该机构提出问题。然而，创业者往往选择保持沉默，主要原因在于他们不知道该问些什么问题。千万不要保持沉默！
Based on what we have learned already, here are some insightful questions that you (Josh) can ask the private equity firm:根据我们目前已了解到的信息，以下是一些你可以向这家私募股权公司提出的有价值的问题： How have your previous funds performed?你之前的基金表现如何？ What has your typical IRR been at the fund level?该基金的典型内部收益率是多少？ What has been the typical MOIC at the fund level?在基金层面，典型的投资倍数是多少？ Have your funds historically been top quartile?你的资金表现历来都属于顶尖水平吗？ What have your typical results been when you’ve purchased companies or partnered with people like me?当你收购公司或与我这样的人合作时，通常能取得什么样的成果呢？ What has been your typical IRR for similar companies?类似公司的典型内部收益率是多少？ What has your typical MOIC been for similar companies?对于同类公司而言，你们的典型市净率是多少？ Will you consider allowing me to make a rollover investment?您能否考虑允许我进行滚动投资？ Can you walk me through your investment model for my company and show me how my rollover investment performs if you hit your assumptions?你能向我详细解释一下你为我的公司设计的投资方案吗？同时，请说明在各种假设成立的情况下，我的续投计划会取得怎样的投资效果。 Give me examples of companies similar to this. How did they perform? Are there any lessons learned?请举一些与这家公司类似的企业作为例子。它们的经营表现如何？有哪些值得借鉴的经验？ Can you tell me about the average tenure of your employees at the various levels?你能告诉我你们公司不同层级员工的平均任职年限吗？ How do you work with your current portfolio companies?你是如何与你目前投资的公司进行合作的？ What is your rhythm with management?你与管理层之间的沟通节奏是怎样的？ What is your governance philosophy?你的治理理念是什么？ How typical is it for you to make changes in senior leadership?对你来说，对高层领导人员进行调整这种事有多常见？ Can I speak with the CEO’s references? (Ask for one that had a good outcome and one where they fired a person. You want the good, the bad, and the ugly.)我能与首席执行官的推荐人谈谈吗？（请分别询问一位推荐人给出的推荐结果是积极的，以及另一位推荐人导致某人被解雇的案例。你需要了解好的方面、不好的方面，以及那些不那么理想的情况。）
Here are some questions you should ask those references:以下是一些你应该向这些推荐人询问的问题： What was it like to work with this private equity group?与这家私募股权机构合作是怎样的体验？ What was their management style? Were they hands-on or hands-off?他们的管理风格是怎样的？是亲力亲为还是放任不管？ From a governance perspective, how much autonomy did you have to truly make decisions?从治理的角度来看，你拥有多大的自主权来真正做出决策？ Were you treated fairly at all stages of your employment?在您就业的整个过程中，是否都受到了公平的对待？ Did you have a good outcome?你得到了理想的结果吗？ Any recommendations about things you would have done differently?有什么建议吗？关于那些你本可以做得不同的事情。 Rose needs to ask similar questions of the private equity firm during her hiring process:罗斯在招聘过程中需要向这家私募股权公司提出类似的问题。 How have your funds performed over time?您的投资资金长期以来表现如何？ Are your funds typically top quartile?你的资金规模通常属于前四分之一水平吗？ How does your firm perform on types of investments like this company you’re recruiting me to work at?你们公司在这类投资项目上的表现如何？也就是你们正在招聘我去的这家公司。 Can you walk me through your original investment thesis when you bought this platform company?你能向我详细解释一下你当初购买这家平台公司时的投资逻辑吗？ Is the company performing to expectation?该公司的表现是否符合预期？ Is there incentive equity for key executives working at the firm?该公司是否为关键高管提供了激励性股权？ How does that incentive equity work under your various exit scenarios?在各种退出方案中，这种激励性股权机制是如何运作的？ Are there opportunities for me to invest?我有哪些投资机会呢？
Never play short ball and focus on just price—unless price is all that matters to you. Be cognizant of the firm’s personalities and reputations. Pick a firm that you can work well with and one where you have the ability to accelerate your growth. This is playing long ball. Josh should consider staying for a length of time and potentially rolling over equity or remaining an investor in the company. Success requires finding the best partner to get to an attractive outcome within the next three to seven years, and it may involve working with the firm that offers you a little less money today.切勿只看重价格而忽视其他因素——除非价格对你而言是唯一重要的因素。要了解相关公司的特性与声誉，选择一家你能与之良好合作、且能够帮助你加速成长的公司。这才是真正的长远之计。乔希应该考虑在该公司停留一段时间，甚至继续持有股权或继续作为其投资者。要取得成功，就必须找到最佳合作伙伴，从而在三到七年内实现理想的目标；而这可能意味着要与目前给出的报酬稍低一些的公司合作。

5. Equity Structure, Shareholder Agreement, and Employee Contracts

Ensure Alignment via Equity通过公平机制确保各方的利益一致 The most important aspect here is to ensure alignment. In general, private equity wants to have alignment with their executives. You never want to be in a situation where something that’s bad for the executive is good for the private equity group. You want something that’s good for both of you or bad for both of you, because you don’t want to be at odds with your partner. You want to make decisions in unison and be aligned. This will ensure that the outcome is predictable, and neither side is doing something detrimental to the other.这里最重要的就是确保双方保持一致。一般来说，私募股权机构希望与企业的管理层保持一致。绝对不能出现这样一种情况：对管理层不利的事情，却对私募股权机构有利。理想的状态应该是双方都能从中受益，或者双方都会因此受损——因为你们肯定不希望与自己的合作伙伴产生矛盾。你们应该齐心协力地做出决策，确保双方立场一致。这样才能确保结果具有可预测性，同时避免任何一方做出损害另一方利益的行为。
The best way to do this is to create an equity structure that management participates in.实现这一目标的最佳方式是建立一种能让管理层参与的股权结构。
When a private equity firm purchases a company, they typically will use the maximum amount of leverage, or debt financing that the target company can afford based on its cash flows, and use the least amount of cash equity from the fund as possible. This allows the fund to preserve its cash to purchase other companies and to support the other platforms they currently own. This excess capacity is known as “dry powder.” These buyouts are known as “leveraged buyouts” because the debt financing, or leverage, is the main source of the purchase.当一家私募股权公司收购一家企业时，它们通常会利用目标企业基于其现金流所能承受的最大杠杆比率，即最大程度的债务融资；同时尽量减少自身投入的现金股本。这样做有助于私募股权基金保留资金，用于收购其他企业或支持其已拥有的其他业务平台。这种剩余的融资能力被称为“备用资金”。这类收购行为被称为“杠杆收购”，因为债务融资才是完成收购的主要资金来源。
If you recall, the example company we used earlier was bought for an enterprise value of $32M, of which $20M was debt financing and $12 million was equity from the fund. In the new capital structure, shares of stock are issued in various ways that create a means to incentivize management to hit the targets established in the investment model by the private equity firm. Let’s discuss some of the more common incentive equity structures Josh and Rose will encounter.如果你还记得的话，我们之前使用的那个示例公司是以3200万美元的企业价值被收购的，其中2000万美元来自债务融资，1200万美元则来自该基金的股权投资。在新的资本结构下，公司股票的发行方式多种多样，这些方式旨在激励管理层实现私募股权机构设定的投资目标。接下来，我们就来探讨乔希和罗斯可能会遇到的几种常见的激励性股权结构。
As we discussed earlier, private equity firms earn their money by charging management fees—to keep the lights on—and then they charge carried interest of their limited partners, which is typically 20 percent of every dollar of profit generated on a company that they buy, grow, and sell. By nature of a ten-year limited partner agreement, they are going to be buying, improving, growing, and then selling portfolio companies over a three- to seven-year time frame. This is what makes private equity a very lucrative career path for anyone involved—including Josh and Rose. They get to ride the coattails of very sophisticated investors, and there will be a liquidity event, or a sale, every three to seven years. This is how management generates wealth. What is better than selling your company once? Perhaps it’s getting the opportunity to sell the same company two or three times and participate in the value creation each time!正如我们之前讨论的，私募股权公司通过收取管理费来维持运营成本；随后，它们还会向有限合伙人收取收益分成，通常为旗下被收购、培育并最终出售的公司所产生的每1美元利润的20%。由于有限合伙协议的期限通常为10年，因此这些公司通常会在3到7年的时间内完成收购、优化运营、实现增长，最终出售这些被投资企业。正是这种运作模式，使得私募股权行业对所有相关人士来说都是一条极具吸引力的职业道路——乔希和罗斯也不例外。他们能够借助那些经验丰富的投资者的力量，而且每隔三到七年就会有一次资产变现或出售的机会。管理层正是通过这种方式创造财富的。有什么比只卖一次公司更好的呢？或许更好的选择是能够多次出售同一家公司，并且每次都能从中分享到价值创造的成果！
First, when a company is purchased, a holding or acquisition company is put in place to provide separation from the private equity fund and any liability that may exist now, or in the future at the company level, and there’s an equity structure where the various parties are buying stock that gets issued in multiple classes. The private equity firm puts equity into the company through a Class A instrument, where Class A stock is preferred stock. The firm typically invites management to also buy equity, so Josh gets the chance to roll over some of his proceeds from the sale—or Rose gets to make a cash investment—and purchase this same Class A stock.首先，当一家公司被收购时，会成立一家控股公司或收购方，以此将该公司与私募股权基金区分开来，并隔离该公司当前或未来可能存在的任何负债。同时，会建立一种股权结构，各方通过购买不同类别的股份来参与投资。私募股权机构会通过A类股权工具向该公司注入资金，而A类股票属于优先股。通常，该机构还会邀请公司管理层购买股权，这样乔希就有机会将出售所得的一部分资金用于购买同样的A类股票；或者罗斯也可以用现金进行投资。
It’s a little ironic for Rose, because often when you consider a new job, you want to know if there is a bonus opportunity. In the private equity world, it’s the opposite. You’re hoping for the chance to write a check and invest in Class A shares. This is the place where equity originally comes into the company. If it costs $10 million of equity to buy a company, then there will be Class A shares issued that equal $10 million—every company I have seen starts out with Class A shares valued at $1,000 a share, so in this case, there would be 10,000 shares of Class A stock issued.对罗斯来说，这有点具有讽刺意味。因为通常在考虑一份新工作时，人们会想知道是否有奖金之类的额外福利。但在私募股权领域，情况恰恰相反——人们希望有机会开出支票，用于投资A类股票。正是通过这种方式，股权才真正进入这家企业。如果收购一家公司需要投入1000万美元的股本，那么就会发行总额为1000万美元的A类股票。我见过的所有公司，其A类股票的初始发行价格都是1000美元一股，因此在这种情况下，将会发行10,000股A类股票。
Class A stock may or may not include a preferred yield. For those firms that implement it, there may be a compounding preferred yield; typical in today’s world, it’s 7–10 percent. Using 8 percent as an example, at the end of the first year, $1,000 is now worth $1,080, and at the end of the second year, it’s worth $1,166.44. In essence, it’s a guaranteed return for the equity that’s put into the business. Some firms choose not to use a preferred yield on the Class A shares, and some do. It’s not right or wrong, just different. Kind of like hands-on versus hands-off, different firms use different strategies. The important factor is to understand how it works and compounds in the specific instance that you are looking at.A类股票可能包含优先股息，也可能不包含。对于选择实施优先股息制度的公司而言，其优先股息通常具有复利特性；在当前环境下，这一收益率通常为7%至10%。以8%为例，第一年结束时1,000美元的金额将增长至1,080美元；第二年结束时则增长至1,166.44美元。从本质上讲，这是一种对投入该企业的股本所获得的保证回报。有些公司选择不对A类股票支付优先股息，而有些公司则会这么做。这两种做法没有对错之分，只是存在差异而已。这就好比“主动管理”与“被动管理”的区别——不同公司会采用不同的策略。关键在于理解在具体情况下这种机制是如何运作的，以及其收益是如何实现复利增长的。
Let’s discuss how equity is cashed out. Let’s say equity in a company costs $100 million. The private equity fund puts up $90 million of equity, and members of the management team put in $10 million. Everyone who puts in equity, including management, gets a 10 percent preferred yield. After one year, every dollar invested is worth $1.10. When the company is sold, the debt is paid back first. Then equity is returned, first to the Class A shareholders who get back their original dollar, plus the first 10 percent of interest that has compounded over time.我们来探讨一下如何将股权变现。假设某公司的股权价值为1亿美元：其中9000万美元由私募股权基金提供，1000万美元则由管理团队成员出资。所有出资方，包括管理团队成员，都能获得10%的优先收益。一年后，每1美元的投资额都将增值至1.10美元。当公司被出售时，首先会偿还债务；随后股权会按顺序返还给A类股东——他们不仅能拿回最初投入的款项，还能获得这段时间内累积的10%利息。
Once equity and the preferred yield are paid back, any remaining money waterfalls over to Class B. Class B is the second class of stock. Of this class, typically 10 percent is issued to management through some type of a profit interest unit, or an incentive pool. It looks like a stock option but gets capital gains treatment. There’s a tax advantageous benefit to management in the way that this is structured.在偿还了普通股股东及优先股股东的收益后，剩余的资金将全部流向B类股票。B类股票属于第二级别的股票。通常会有10%的B类股票以某种形式分配给管理层，具体形式可能是利润分享机制或激励计划。这种安排类似于股票期权，但享有资本利得税方面的税收优惠。从这种结构来看，对管理层而言确实具有税收上的优势。
Again, the private equity firm is seeking alignment, and they want the management team to do well. There might be as many as fifteen or twenty members of the management team who get stock. It’s a free equity incentive to do a good job. Of the 10 percent, the CEO typically gets 30–50 percent, the CFO another 10–20 percent, and the COO gets 5–10 percent of the pool. The remainder is divided among vice presidents, directors, and other key employees. As a CEO, I tend to take the lower percentage in the typical range for myself in order to have more to offer those in lower levels of the leadership team. I prefer that they participate in the incentive equity as it provides the motivation I’m looking for to go the extra mile.这家私募股权公司同样希望与管理层保持一致，同时也希望管理层能够取得优异的成绩。管理层中可能有15到20名成员会获得股票作为激励。这是一种激励他们做好工作的免费股权奖励。在总股份的10%中，首席执行官通常会获得30%到50%的份额，首席财务官获得10%到20%，首席运营官则获得5%到10%的份额。剩余的部分则分配给副总裁、董事以及其他关键员工。作为首席执行官，我通常会选择低于常规比例的份额，这样就能有更多的资源分配给领导层中较低级别的成员。我希望他们也能参与这种股权激励计划，因为这正是我所需要的动力，能促使他们更加努力地工作。
Going back to our example: $100 million of equity, this time with no preferred yield, is used to buy a company. When the company is sold, debt and transaction expenses are paid first, then equity is returned with no preferred yield compounding; the first dollar of profit starts the Class B waterfall where management is now sharing in 10 percent of the profit or as the capital structure dictates.回到我们的例子：1亿美元的股权资金被用来收购一家公司。出售该公司时，首先偿还债务及支付交易费用，随后返还股权，且这部分股权不享受任何优先收益；只有当首次实现盈利时，管理层才会开始按B类股权的分配规则获得利润——具体收益比例取决于公司的资本结构，一般为10%。
Class C is the third class of stock. In this class, management is generally given 25 percent of the pool. It’s further incentive to do well and is triggered when the private equity fund hits a particular return threshold on capital, most often tied to an MOIC threshold. It is typical to have Class C shares start earning once MOIC is above 2.5 to 3.0 times return. Once the Class C threshold is reached, remaining proceeds flow from Class B shares into Class C shares. It’s this flowing at various points and thresholds that causes me to label this structure the ABC waterfall.C类股票属于第三类股权。在这种结构下，管理层通常能获得总收益的25%。这一安排进一步激励了管理层努力实现良好业绩；当私募股权基金的投资回报达到特定门槛时，管理层才会获得额外奖励，而这一门槛通常与“投资回报率倍数”相关。一般来说，只有当“投资回报率倍数”超过2.5至3.0倍时，C类股票才会开始产生收益。一旦达到这一门槛，剩余收益就会从B类股票转移至C类股票。正是这种在不同节点和不同门槛下发生的收益转移机制，让我将这种股权结构称为“ABC瀑布式分配机制”。
I should point out that the waterfall keeps pouring as long as the sale price of the company is high enough to fund it. If the company is sold five years down the road and the sale price covers only debt and Class A, then Class B and C—where management’s incentive pools are funded from—are simply shut out because the waterfall has run dry. Typically, a private equity shop will work with management in these cases to provide some nominal bonus as a thank-you for the efforts. Call it a consolation prize. As with any investment, there is no guarantee of performance, and there is always plenty of risk.需要指出的是，只要该公司的出售价格足够高，足以支撑相关支出，这种“瀑布式分配机制”就会持续运作。但如果五年后该公司被出售，而出售所得仅够偿还债务以及支付A类股东的收益，那么B类和C类股东就无法获得任何收益——因为用于支付他们奖金的资金早已耗尽。在这种情况下，私募股权机构通常会与管理层协商，给予他们一些象征性的奖金，以感谢他们的付出。不妨把这看作是一种安慰奖。与任何投资一样，这种投资方式无法保证一定会有好的回报，而且始终存在诸多风险。 To recap, essentially, the ABC waterfall has three classes. Class A is where equity came in. When a company is sold, debt is paid off first, then the Class A equity is returned. If it has a preferred yield, the preferred yield is also returned. Once you’ve cleared those, the equity rolls over to Class B where management is typically getting ten cents on the dollar until a certain MOIC threshold is reached. From there, it rolls over to Class C where management now has twenty-five cents on the dollar of profit that they’re going to share in until the waterfall runs dry.总结来说，ABC瀑布模型大致分为三个层级。第一层级是股权投资者的收益阶段：当公司被出售时，首先偿还债务，随后返还属于第一层级的股权收益；如果存在优先股，优先股收益也会被一并返还。偿还完这些债务后，收益会流转至第二层级，此时管理层通常能获得10%的利润分成，直到达到特定的资本回报率门槛。之后收益会进入第三层级，此时管理层能获得25%的利润分成，这种分配方式会持续进行，直到整个收益分配流程结束。
This is all incentive for management to do a good job. It works well for some people but not others. If you’re Josh, you may want to roll forward millions of dollars. And if you’re Rose and you’ve been working for a while, you might also be able to write a nice-sized check to purchase equity. If you’re getting a preferred yield of 10 percent, this is advantageous. If you’re not in either of those positions to roll equity or write a check, it raises the hurdle to when you will start receiving money from the incentive pool. You will be in Class B stock and not paid until it rolls over from Class A. Do you see now why it’s better for management to have an ABC waterfall without a preferred yield? All other things being equal in a sales process, if I had two competing bids and one buyer had a preferred yield and one did not, I might choose the one without. Price matters, but in a tie game, the scoreboard may hold the key in terms of choosing door number one versus door number two.所有这些措施都是为了激励管理层做好工作。这种机制对某些人有效，但对另一些人则不起作用。如果你是乔希，或许就可以提取数百万美元的资金。而如果你是罗斯，且已经工作了一段时间，或许也可以开出一张数额可观的支票来购买股权。如果你能获得10%的优先收益，那当然很有优势。但如果你既没有资格提取股权，也无法开支票，那么从激励基金中获取收益的时间就会相应推迟。你将持有B类股票，只有在这些股票从A类转为B类时才能获得收益。现在你应该明白为什么对管理层来说，采用没有优先收益权的ABC分级收益结构会更有利了。在销售过程中，其他条件相同的情况下，如果有两个竞争性报价，其中一个买家有优先收益权，而另一个没有，我可能会选择后者。价格固然重要，但在势均力敌的情况下，决定选择哪个选项的关键可能就在于收益结构本身。
When companies do well and management teams are aligned with their shareholders, everybody makes money. And since the platform companies are sold every three to seven years on average, there are opportunities over the life of a career to get multiple paydays. Where private equity makes their money by getting carried interest, management makes money when companies are bought and sold, and these stock structures distribute the proceeds. When a company does well, everyone makes money. That’s what I call alignment!当企业运营良好，管理团队与股东的目标保持一致时，所有人都能从中获利。由于这些平台型企业平均每三到七年就会被出售一次，因此在一个人的一生中都有机会多次获得收益。私募股权机构通过获取附带权益来获利，而管理层则在企业被买卖的过程中赚取收益，这种股权结构使得收益得以合理分配。当企业表现优异时，所有人都能受益——这就是我所说的“目标一致”！
While we are on the subject of what’s not good for management, I should also mention that some private equity firms charge management fees to cover their overhead at the company level and collect the payments quarterly from the company’s cash flows. On a larger company that has sufficient cash flow to cover it, I have seen fees as high as $2 million per year paid in quarterly installments. When management fees are funded by the company, they reduce the cash flow that could be used to pay down debt or make investments. This is also detrimental to management’s equity from the incentive stock pool and can once again be a door number one versus door number two differentiator when selecting between two firms at the tail end of the process.既然我们正在讨论对管理层不利的行为，那我还要提一下：一些私募股权公司会收取管理费，用以支付其自身的运营开支，并每季度从被投资企业的现金流中收取这笔费用。对于那些拥有充足现金流、足以支付这些费用的大型企业而言，我见过每年需支付高达200万美元的管理费，且这些费用需分季度缴纳。当管理费由企业自身承担时，就会减少可用于偿还债务或进行投资的现金流。此外，这也意味着管理层从激励性股票计划中获得的收益会相应减少。在最终选择哪家私募股权公司时，这一点很可能成为决定性因素。
Accelerated Method加速折旧法 Accelerated method is a less commonly used structure, but one I have encountered and feel is worth mentioning. In this, there are typically two to three classes of stock—and no options or incentive pools exist. Everybody gets a chance to write a check. If you can’t write a check, you’re not involved in the returns. This means fewer numbers of management can participate, although sometimes you can attempt to negotiate a “grant” for a pool of money for employees to receive stock that can be distributed below the senior executive level.加速分配法是一种较少被采用的激励机制，但我认为它值得提及。在这种机制下，通常只有两到三类股票；同时不存在期权或其他激励措施。所有员工都有机会获得股票奖励。如果无法获得股票奖励，那么就无法分享公司的收益。这意味着只有少数管理人员能够参与这种激励计划。不过，有时也可以尝试协商一项“拨款”方案，为员工提供一笔资金，用于购买股票——而这些股票的分配对象可以是高级管理层以下的所有员工。
This structure is based around the concept of accelerated return. If the investment does a 2x MOIC, the private equity fund through the holding company might agree to pay the management team 5x their investment. If the investment does 3x MOIC, they might give management 10x their investment. It’s disproportionate, or an accelerated amount of return that favors management, but it requires management to invest and buy stock to play. The private equity fund can pay the accelerated returns because management winds up holding a very small overall portion of the equity structure when compared to an ABC waterfall, and they want to incentivize management to do well and ensure alignment. The first class of stock is issued to the private equity fund and coinvestors—if any—and the second class with the accelerated returns is issued to management. Sometimes a third class is added for outside advisors and board members that pays a return higher than the investor class and lower than the management class. This third class sits between the other two.这种机制的核心在于“加速回报”的理念。如果某项投资能够实现2倍的资本增值倍数，那么私募股权基金通过其控股公司可能会同意向管理团队支付相当于其投资额5倍的报酬；而如果该投资能实现3倍的资本增值倍数，他们则可能支付10倍的报酬。这种回报机制对管理团队极为有利，属于一种“加速回报”的形式，但同时也要求管理团队进行投资并购买公司股票才能参与其中。私募股权基金之所以能够支付如此高额的回报，是因为与传统的收益分配模式相比，管理团队最终持有的股权比例非常小。此外，私募股权基金希望通过这种方式激励管理团队取得优异业绩，从而确保双方的目标保持一致。第一类股票发放给私募股权基金及联合投资者（如果有的话）；而具有更高回报率的第二类股票则发放给管理层。有时还会设置第三类股票，面向外部顾问和董事会成员，其回报率介于第一类投资者与第二类管理层之间。
In a way, it’s like management gets a large preferred yield, or preferred return, that the other shareholders in the private equity fund don’t get. It works, provided you can write a check large enough to create personal motivation to do a good job. If you can’t write a check and no grant exists, it can create some tension among employees who, in the last round, may have had equity and are now locked out.从某种意义上说，这就好比管理层能获得较高的优先收益，而私募基金中的其他股东则无法获得这种收益。这种机制只有在你能提供足够高的激励措施时才能发挥作用——只有这样，员工才会有动力把工作做好。如果你无法提供足够的激励，同时又没有其他补偿措施，就可能会在员工之间产生矛盾。毕竟，在上一轮投资中，这些员工可能还拥有股权，但现在却被排除在了收益分配之外。 I have seen both the accelerated method and ABC waterfall in action. Both work well when a company does well. Like everything else we have talked about, there is no right or wrong; there is just different. Each method has pros and cons. Understanding how it all works is the key. Private equity partners are more than happy to explain how their capital structure works and how management participates. Remember, alignment is to their best interest.我亲眼见过加速法与ABC瀑布法的实际应用情况。当公司经营状况良好时，这两种方法都能发挥出色效果。与我们讨论过的其他所有内容一样，这两种方法并无对错之分，只是存在差异而已。每种方法都有其优缺点，关键在于理解其运作原理。私募股权投资者非常乐意解释他们的资本结构是如何运作的，以及管理层在其中扮演的角色。请记住，保持各方利益的一致性才是符合他们自身利益的。
Earnout收益支付条款 There is another potential add-on structure for Josh called an earnout. I’ve seen entrepreneurs make a great deal of money under earnouts, and it’s another way to be incentivized to do a better job. If you want a higher price and aren’t getting it, it’s possible that a private equity firm might put an earnout in place that says, “If Josh grows the company from X to Y over the next three years, he’ll get additional consideration paid to him.”对于乔希来说，还有另一种可能的附加激励机制，即“绩效奖励机制”。我见过许多创业者通过这种机制赚到了大钱，而这确实是一种激励他们更好地履行职责的有效方式。如果你希望获得更高的报酬却未能如愿，那么私募股权公司完全可以实施这种绩效奖励机制——即“如果乔希能在未来三年内将公司规模从X扩大到Y，他就能获得额外的报酬”。 In essence, this is a way to raise the purchase price by continuing to grow the company post-sale. I’m not usually a big fan of earnouts when I’m buying several companies at a time and combining them because it can lead to diverging interests and make alignment a bit more difficult. However, it’s definitely a tool that in certain circumstances is a viable way to increase the purchase price for an entrepreneurial-led company that might be underperforming for some particular and known reason. Sometimes the earnout potential is the difference between yes and no when Josh was expecting a higher purchase price but not getting it.从本质上讲，这是一种通过公司在收购后的持续发展来提升收购价格的方法。通常情况下，当我同时收购多家公司并将其合并时，我并不太赞成采用这种“业绩补偿机制”，因为这种机制可能导致各方利益出现分歧，从而增加协调的难度。然而，在某些特定情况下，这确实是一种可行的方法——尤其是对于那些由于某些已知原因而表现不佳的创业型企业而言。有时候，能否获得业绩补偿机制带来的收益，就成了决定是否进行收购的关键因素。就像乔希原本期望获得更高的收购价格，但最终未能如愿以偿的情况一样。
Questions to Ask需要提出的问题 There are several key questions to ask:有几个关键问题需要探讨： What is the model for investment? The private equity firm should be able to spell out what specifically they are going to do over a three- to seven-year period to increase the value of the company and when they hope to sell it. Whenever this liquidity event takes place, every three to seven years, there will be a payday.投资的模式是什么呢？这家私募股权公司应该能够明确说明在三到七年的时间里他们将具体采取哪些措施来提升公司的价值，以及他们预计何时会出售该公司。每当这种流动性事件发生时，也就是每三到七年一次，他们就能获得收益。 What is the equity structure? Explain to me what I get at your different levels of return that you’ve modeled.什么是股权结构？请向我解释一下，在您所建立的模型中，不同股权结构对应的回报水平分别是什么。 Do you have a preferred yield on equity investments?您对股权投资有特定的收益预期吗？ Do you charge management fees that are paid by the company?你们会向企业收取管理费用吗？ Ask for specific examples at different return levels. “Show me your base case, upside case, and downside case.” All firms typically model three cases: the base case, a scenario if there is a home run, and a scenario for if something goes wrong.要求提供不同收益水平下的具体案例。“请向我展示你的基准情景、最佳情景以及最坏情景。”通常情况下，所有企业都会对三种情景进行建模：基准情景、出现理想结果的情景，以及出现问题时的情景。
The shareholder agreement will govern the prioritization of liquidity events that take place, typically in this order:股东协议将规定各类流动性相关事件的处理优先顺序，其具体顺序通常如下： Debt债务 Equity股权 Preferred Yield (if there is one)优先收益率（如有该收益率的话） B PoolB组 C PoolC组
Some private equity firms don’t want management worried about whether or not they’ll have to fund additional equity, so they put in place a “dilution protection.” In this, if an acquisition is made that requires equity, the private equity firm automatically gives some shares that were held aside to management so that they maintain their ownership percentage without being diluted. There have been a few times in my career where I had to write checks when certain acquisitions were made to avoid dilution, and this concept of dilution protection sure would have been nice!一些私募股权公司不希望企业管理层担心是否需要追加资金来购买股权，因此他们设计了“稀释保护”机制。在这种机制下，如果需要进行需要注入股权的收购，私募股权公司会自动将事先预留的部分股份转让给企业管理层，确保他们的持股比例不会因此被稀释。在我的职业生涯中，有几次在进行某些收购时确实需要支付现金以避免股权稀释，要是当时有这种“稀释保护”机制该多好啊！
Note: As I mentioned in the introduction, I always recommend you obtain legal, financial, and tax advice from a competent attorney and accountant.注意：正如我在引言中提到的，我始终建议大家向具备专业能力的律师和会计师咨询相关法律、财务及税务方面的问题。

6. Generating Wealth

True, multigenerational wealth is created by running and investing in companies that are owned and operated by private equity. Here’s my take on how this works.的确，多代相传的财富是通过经营和投资那些由私募股权机构拥有和运营的公司而积累起来的。以下是我对这一机制的理解。 Very typically, a seller such as Josh is focused only on price. He never looks at the scoreboard, doesn’t consider management styles, doesn’t think about personalities, doesn’t look at whether it’s an ABC waterfall or accelerated method—with or without preferred yield—and instead looks at selling his company as a one-time event. I often hear the Joshes of the world saying, “I don’t want stock if I’m not in control.” Given the growth of private equity and the sophistication of the industry, I think it’s not necessarily a wise position to take!通常情况下，像乔希这样的卖家只关注价格。他们从不关注企业的运营状况，也不考虑管理风格或团队成员的性格特点，更不会分析企业采用的是哪种销售模式——无论是传统的逐步销售方式，还是加速销售模式；也不会考虑是否提供优先收益。对他们来说，出售公司仅仅是一次性事件而已。我经常听到这类卖家说：“如果我不能掌控公司，我就不要股票。”然而，鉴于私募股权行业的快速发展及其日益复杂的运作模式，我认为这种立场未必明智。
Rolling Forward滚动前进
As mentioned earlier, private equity funds have a life span of ten years. They buy platform companies in the beginning, grow the companies in the middle, and sell them at the end. The typical hold period of a platform company ranges from three to seven years. They generate wealth for their firm by charging carried interest on the returns that limited partners earn. Bottom line: to generate wealth for their own firm, they need to make money on their platform companies. As an equity investor employee of a platform company, you get to ride their sophisticated coattails!如前所述，私募股权基金的存续期为十年。它们最初购买相关企业，随后推动这些企业成长，最后将其出售。这类企业的典型持有期限为三到七年。它们通过向有限合伙人收取收益分成来为自身创造财富。归根结底，为了让自己所在的公司获利，它们必须从所持有的企业中赚取收益。作为这些企业的股权投资者，你便可享受到它们带来的丰厚回报！
Because I know how this game works and because I’ve been playing it for a long time, I know that any company I run is going to be sold every three to seven years (call it an average of five). So this is how I view the process: why take one bite out of the apple when you can take two, three, or more?因为我知道这个游戏的运作规律，也因为我已经玩了这个游戏很长时间，所以我明白：无论我经营哪家公司，它都将在三到七年内被出售（平均来说就是五年）。因此，我是这样看待这个过程的：既然可以一次吃两口、三口甚至更多，为什么只吃一口呢？ My personal record is five, seven-figure paydays in the same company over a thirteen-year period. I’m not offering investment advice; I’m just telling you how I personally have generated transformational wealth for my family during my career.我个人的记录是：在十三年的时间里，我在同一家公司获得了五次金额高达七位数的薪资发放。我并非在提供投资建议，只是想告诉大家，在我的职业生涯中，我究竟是如何为我的家庭创造巨额财富的。
Rose can make money this way as well, because private equity uniquely is able to offer this opportunity even to those who didn’t found the business—like me. Remember that for a private equity firm, IRR is the most important measure; selling faster is more important than selling later because IRR is time dependent. It’s this phenomenon that positions employees in a portfolio company to generate wealth multiple times as a company grows.罗斯也能通过这种方式赚钱，因为私募股权机构独有的优势在于，它们能为那些并非企业创始人的人士提供这样的机会——比如我。需要记住的是，对私募股权公司而言，内部收益率才是最重要的衡量标准；尽快出售资产比延迟出售更为重要，因为内部收益率与时间密切相关。正是这一机制使得投资组合中的员工能够随着企业的成长而多次创造财富。
In today’s world, it’s fairly typical for private equity to target or underwrite a 3x return on investment as their base case, or 3x MOIC. Most entrepreneurs don’t value rollover equity. If given the opportunity to roll over zero, they would choose that. My suggestion is to contemplate trying something different. On the first sale, for every dollar you’re paid, you do two things to help with liquidity and diversification:在当今世界，私募股权机构通常将3倍的投资回报作为其基本预期目标。大多数创业者并不看重股权的延续性——如果有机会将股权立即变现，他们肯定会选择这样做。我的建议是尝试一种不同的方法：在首次出售时，对于每收到的一美元收入，你应采取两项措施来提升资产的流动性并实现投资组合的多元化。 Roll forward. Take thirty-four cents and roll it forward. This is typically tax-deferred treatment because these are proceeds from the sale of a company, and you’re not realizing them now. Check with your accountant or tax advisor to be sure. This action represents the investment for the future.将这34美分递延至以后再处理。这种处理方式通常属于税收递延机制，因为这些款项来自公司的出售所得，而你目前并未实际收到这些收入。为确保无误，请咨询你的会计或税务顾问。这种处理方式实际上是对未来的一种投资。 Cash out. Take sixty-six cents out. Depending on the capital structure, you will pay taxes on a portion of this. The rest goes into your bank account. This action represents the asset diversification.套现。取出66美分。根据资本结构的不同，你需要对其中的一部分缴纳税款。剩余的钱则会存入你的银行账户。这一操作体现了资产多元化策略。
Now, on the second sale, let’s call it five years later, the thirty-four cents you rolled forward—if it’s a 3x MOIC—yields you $1.02. After this sale, roll thirty-five cents forward and take sixty-seven cents out. Do this repeatedly, incrementally nudging up what you roll forward and take out. As long as you can get 3x MOIC, every next payday will be larger than the last.现在，假设五年后进行了第二次出售。将那34美分继续投资下去，如果其年化投资回报率能达到3倍，那么最终这笔投资将增值至1.02美元。第二次出售之后，再继续将35美分投入投资，同时取出67美分。重复这一过程，逐步增加每次投入与取出的金额。只要能保持3倍的年化投资回报率，那么之后的每笔收益都会比上一笔更多。 Why sell your company once when you can sell it twice? Or three times? Results of course can vary; your returns might not be 3x MOIC in each instance. They may be lower or higher. In my personal case, I have never lost money when investing alongside private equity.既然可以卖一次公司，为什么不卖两次甚至三次呢？当然，实际结果可能会有所不同——并非每次投资都能获得3倍的资本收益倍数；收益可能低于或高于这个数值。就我个人而言，与私募股权机构合作进行投资时，我从未遭受过损失。 I’ve spent almost twenty years running three different, national private equity-backed companies. These companies are bought and sold on average every three to seven years. I invest money and write checks when I come to a company. I participate in those different stock structures. And when I sell a company, I roll money forward and take some out. It’s been a perfect way for me to diversify investments while at the same time staying invested for the future in the companies I run and can directly impact through my efforts.我花了近二十年的时间经营三家不同的、由全国性私募股权机构支持的公司。这些公司平均每三到七年就会被出售一次。当我投资于某家公司时，我会投入资金并开具支票；同时，我也会参与该公司的股权结构安排。而当我出售一家公司时，我会将所得资金继续用于后续投资，并提取一部分作为个人收益。这种投资方式对我来说堪称完美——它既能实现投资组合的多元化，又能让我持续投资于自己管理的那些公司，并通过自己的努力直接对这些公司产生积极影响。
Risk Evaluation风险评估 There’s always an element of risk, but there is in everything you do. In staying with your Fortune 500 company, there could be massive layoffs, they could close plants, or simply put you out to pasture because of some new idea or restructure. When you’re called by a recruiter, look into it. It’s more than a title change. If you go to a smaller company that’s owned by private equity, it could potentially open up a true wealth-generating opportunity and send your career down a different path. It’s a fork in the road: do you go left or right? The decision is up to you, but hopefully, you now are better prepared to decide.凡事都存在风险，但这在所有事情中都是不可避免的。如果你继续留在那家《财富》500强企业，可能会发生大规模裁员，公司也可能会关闭某些工厂；或者仅仅因为某些新的经营策略或重组计划，你就被裁掉。当有招聘人员联系你时，不妨仔细考虑一下。这不仅仅是一次职位变动那么简单。如果你跳槽到一家由私募股权机构控股的中小型企业，这反而可能为你带来真正的财富增长机会，让你的职业生涯走上不同的道路。现在正处于一个十字路口：你是向左走还是向右走？这个决定由你自己做出，但希望你现在能更有能力做出明智的选择。
I could have stayed at GE. I was earning a six-figure salary and living comfortably. But since I left, over the last eighteen years, I’ve generated tens of millions of dollars in wealth that came because of the types of opportunities I discussed above. When I originally evaluated making the move, I asked my mentor, “Is it better to stay at the company and be one of a thousand people like me in middle management? Or should I go become president of my first, much smaller company?”我本可以继续留在通用电气。那时我的薪水高达六位数，生活也非常舒适。但自从我离开后，在过去的十八年里，我创造了数千万美元的财富，而这些财富的获得正是得益于上述那些机会。当初在决定是否离职时，我问了我的导师：“是留在公司里，成为成千上万中层管理者中的一个；还是去担任自己创办的那家规模小得多的公司的总裁呢？” He responded that it’s far better to go take your first role as president. Once a president, always a president. You’ll never be thought of again as anything other than a president. Hindsight being twenty/twenty in my case, he was right!他回答说，去担任第一任总统这个职位要好得多。一旦成为了总统，那就永远是总统了。从此以后，人们只会把你视为总统，而不会再有其他身份。事后看来，他确实是对的！ At that time in my career when the phone first rang, I wasn’t necessarily chasing transformational wealth. I was chasing title and paycheck. The opportunity to generate wealth through private equity incentive stock plans happened to be a bit of dumb luck that I stumbled into—but now focus on with laser intensity in every opportunity I pursue.在我职业生涯的初期，当电话第一次响起时，我追求的未必是那种能带来巨大财富的机会。我当时更在意的是职位与薪水。而通过私募股权激励计划来创造财富的机会，其实只是我偶然遇到的幸运之事——但现在，我会在每一个机会面前都投入全部精力去抓住它。
As a CEO, this chapter may be a mind shift. You want to consider diversifying rather than retiring. There’s no reason to take all your chips off the table, as subsequent transactions of the same company can return a larger profit than the first one. Take the opportunity to continue working with a private equity firm. What better company to invest in than the one you already know! What I personally like about this strategy is that I can take chips off the table and diversify my asset base but continue to have an opportunity to generate additional wealth without having to start over in a different company.作为首席执行官，这一策略可能需要你改变原有的思维模式。你应该考虑多元化投资，而非直接退休。没有必要把所有筹码都押在某一次交易上——因为同一公司的后续交易往往能带来比初次交易更大的收益。不妨抓住机会继续与私募股权公司合作。还有什么比已经熟悉的公司更值得投资的对象呢？我个人非常喜欢这种策略：它既能让我分散资产配置，实现资产多元化，同时又能让我继续创造财富，而无需在另一家公司重新开始。 As a mid-level manager coming from a Fortune 500 company, build your pedigree there and then potentially leave for a private equity-backed company. You can build a name at a much higher senior level and potentially make more money through investment opportunities. Not a lot of people make seven figures a year in the Fortune 500 world as a percentage of the total employee base. Compare that to private equity-backed middle-market companies and you might be surprised. A six-figure employee in middle management in the Fortune 500 world can be a seven-figure employee in the middle market once you factor in base, bonus, stock incentives, and investing alongside private equity.作为一名来自《财富》500强企业的中层管理者，你可以在那里积累自己的职业资历，之后再跳槽到一家由私募股权机构支持的公司。在新的公司里，你能够晋升到更高的职位，同时也有机会通过投资获得更多收益。在《财富》500强企业中，能每年赚取七位数收入的员工在整个员工群体中所占的比例其实并不高。但相比之下，在那些由私募股权机构支持的中小企业里，情况可能截然不同。在《财富》500强企业中担任中层管理职务的员工，如果把基本工资、奖金、股票激励计划以及通过私募股权投资获得的收益都计算在内，其年收入很可能会达到七位数。 In either position, it’s key to be well aligned with the private equity firm. They can push you—even if it pisses you off! But remember, it’s OK. They have your best interest in mind, too. You’ll benefit financially from riding the coattails of sophisticated investment professionals.无论处于哪种立场，与私募股权公司保持良好的合作关系都至关重要。他们可能会对你施加压力——即便这会让你感到恼火！但请记住，这没什么。他们也是出于对你的最佳利益着想。借助这些经验丰富的投资专业人士的力量，你一定能在财务上获得收益。

7. The Early Days

The First Days最初的日子 In these early days, there’s a period of gelling. It’s an arranged marriage of sorts. You need to get to know the people you met during the process, where everyone was on their best behavior. Once the deal has closed, the real people show up, and it is time to get to work!在初期阶段，会有一段互相了解、建立关系的时期。这其实有点像包办婚姻——你需要了解在这段时间里遇到的那些人，而那时每个人都会展现出自己最好的一面。一旦交易完成，真实的一面才会显现出来，这时才真正该开始干活了！ There is a need for speed. Remember that the number one way private equity firms are measured by their limited partners is on their fund’s IRR, which takes into account the time value of their investment. Time is not your friend when it comes to IRR. You’re going to be selling this company every three to seven years, and it’s in your personal best interest to do it sooner rather than later, simply because there are more paydays over the course of your career if you do. In order to make the math work, you need to hit the ground running hard.速度至关重要。要知道，私募股权公司的业绩主要就是通过其有限合伙人的视角来衡量的，而衡量标准就是该基金的内部收益率（IRR），这一指标充分考虑了投资的时间价值。在计算内部收益率时，时间绝对不是你的盟友。你每隔三到七年就会出售这家公司，而尽早出售才符合你的最大利益——因为这样在你的职业生涯中就能获得更多的收益。要想让一切顺利推进，你必须立即全力以赴。
Time to Execute执行时刻 Prior to the sale of your company to private equity, you were painting a rosy future of the business while you educated the private equity firm about why they should buy your company. Now you need to show that the story you sold the firm is fact, not fiction. Remember those hockey stick growth projections that showed how bright the future looked once the new owner took control? Time to deliver!在您的公司被出售给私募股权机构之前，您曾描绘出一幅公司前景光明的美好图景，同时向这些机构阐述为何应该购买您的公司。现在，您需要证明当初向他们描绘的情景是事实，而非虚构。还记得那些关于公司增长速度的乐观预测吗？那些预测显示了在新所有者接手后公司前景将多么光明。是时候兑现这些承诺了！ The private equity partner has underwritten a model that includes specific growth levers. Understand what those growth levers are. Translating levers to initiatives, and initiatives to actions, is key to your future success. Be ready to jump and start executing. The time to create the plan is not post-close; it’s before the close.这家私募股权机构提出了一种包含特定增长驱动因素的商业模式。弄清楚这些增长驱动因素究竟是什么。将这些驱动因素转化为具体举措，再将这些举措转化为实际行动，才是确保你未来取得成功的关键。要随时准备好立即付诸行动。制定计划的时机不是在交易完成后，而是在交易完成之前。
I’ve coined a short, modern proverb: “Disrupt yourself, less ye be disrupted by others.” Oftentimes, Josh does things the way Josh has been doing things for the last twenty years. There’s been no need to challenge his own conventions or status quo, but this is why it’s key to understand the investment thesis and the specific growth levers that will be used to grow the business. Remember, in order to make your next payday bigger than the last, we need to double or triple the value of the existing business in three to seven years. To do this, you need to think differently. The company I’m running today had a historic growth trajectory (known as compound annual growth rate [CAGR]) of 10 percent per year for fifteen years prior to my arrival. That trajectory, after two years on the job, is now a CAGR of 25 percent. It took a lot of heavy lifting to change that trajectory; it didn’t just happen on its own. How are you going to change your trajectory?我总结了一句简短而现代的格言：“颠覆自我，才能避免被他人颠覆。”通常情况下，乔希总是按照过去二十年的方式来做事。他没有必要去挑战自己的固有习惯或现状，但正因为如此，理解公司的投资理念以及用于实现业务增长的具体手段就显得至关重要了。记住，要想让下一次的收入比上一次更多，我们就必须在三到七年内将现有业务的价值提升一倍甚至两倍。要做到这一点，就必须换一种思维方式。我如今负责管理的这家公司在我加入之前的15年里，保持着每年10%的复合增长率。而在我上任两年后，该公司的复合增长率提升到了25%。要实现这一增长转变，我们必须付出巨大的努力，这种变化绝非自然而然就能发生。那么，你打算如何改变自己所在公司的增长轨迹呢？
You can’t rest on your laurels. You may have just put millions in the bank, but the private equity guys haven’t put anything in their account. They are spending cash, so they want to bank time. Achieve full potential by developing a plan. Put together specific actions on how to reach full potential, and then, as with every strategic plan, if you can’t measure it, it will never get done. Choose a handful of critical measures, not a thousand. Assign owners to each action, someone who is incentivized to do a good job.你不能安于现状。虽然你刚刚赚进了数百万，但那些私募股权投资者们的账户里还是一分钱都没有。他们在不断支出现金，因此他们希望“积累时间”——也就是争取更多机会。要发挥出全部潜力，就必须制定一个计划，明确具体该采取哪些行动来实现这一目标。而且，就像所有战略计划一样，如果无法对进展进行衡量，那么计划就永远无法完成。只需选择少数几个关键的衡量指标，而不是上千个。为每一项行动指定负责人，这个人必须有动力把工作做好。
Speaking of planning, let me give you a personal example of how I handle it. Before I came to the company I currently run as an employee, I spent thirty days working two days a week as part of a discovery phase. I met with many levels of people inside the company and took copious notes during the conversations. I leveraged the information gathered across eighty different interviews and began to look for common themes or issues across different categories. I then thought about causation and looked for what conclusions I could draw based on the material I had obtained.说到规划，让我举一个我个人的例子，说明我是如何进行规划的。在我成为现在这家公司的员工之前，我花了30天的时间，每周工作两天，进行探索性调研。期间我与公司内不同层级的员工进行了多次交流，并做了大量笔记。利用这些来自80次访谈的信息，我开始寻找不同领域中存在的共同主题或问题。随后，我思考了这些现象之间的因果关系，并根据收集到的资料得出了相应的结论。 Before I even started at the company, I had written a one-hundred-page strategic plan. I documented the underlying symptoms and causes, what changes were required, and detailed my plan of attack. I shared that plan with my staff during a two-day session and then boiled it down to a ninety-minute presentation that I gave to the top sixty leaders in the company. From there, I created eight YouTube videos that I sent out to the entire company over an eight-week period. Just as private equity wants to align incentives, I wanted to align every employee in the company to understand my vision for the future and to prepare them for the changes that were coming.在我正式加入这家公司之前，我就已经起草了一份长达100页的战略规划。在规划中，我详细分析了存在的问题及其根本原因，指出了需要做出的改变，并制定了具体的实施方案。我在为期两天的会议上向全体员工展示了这份规划，随后将其精简为90分钟的演示文稿，向公司里60位高层领导进行了汇报。之后，我又制作了8个YouTube视频，在8周的时间里分发给所有员工。正如私募股权机构希望让所有相关方的利益保持一致一样，我也希望公司里的每一位员工都能理解我对未来的构想，并为即将到来的变革做好准备。

8. Welcome to the Big Leagues

The Pace Increases节奏加快了 Private equity moves at a very fast pace. The players who play with private equity for the first time need to understand that the pace of the game is going to change. As an athlete gets older, the speed of his skills changes. Picture how fast a professional-level hockey player covers the ice compared to a high school athlete. For a first-time professional player in the NHL, you’ll hear him say, “God, it’s a faster game up here!” In the early days with private equity, it’s going to be a different game. Things move at a much faster pace, and the field suddenly seems very small, because people cover a greater distance faster.私募股权行业的节奏快得惊人。那些首次涉足私募股权领域的人需要明白：这个行业的运转速度将会发生变化。就像运动员随着年龄增长，其运动能力也会发生变化一样。想象一下，职业冰球运动员在冰面上的移动速度与高中生运动员相比有多快。对于那些刚进入NHL成为职业球员的新人来说，他们肯定会感叹：“天哪，这里的比赛节奏快得太多了！”在私募股权行业的早期阶段，情况也是如此——一切的发展速度都要快得多，而且竞争格局似乎突然变得异常激烈，因为各方都能以更快的速度完成更多的工作。
If someone is struggling today, imagine their struggle when the company is twice the size and 3x the speed. You have to quickly evaluate. Ask yourself, “Is the team I have on the field today able to perform? Are they capable of making the leap to double our size and speed?” You may have loyalty to your employees, but you also have a job to finish. It’s time to do an assessment of the leadership team and determine where you need changes. Ideally, you would have been thinking about this long ago and actually already have a plan in mind to address talent in the organization. If not, now is the time to catch up! There is an excellent book I’d like to recommend on the process of managing human capital: /move—The CEO’s Playbook for Capturing Value by Sandy Ogg.如果现在有人正在面临困境，那么想象一下，当公司规模扩大一倍、发展速度提升三倍时，他们会遇到多大的困难。你必须迅速做出评估。问问自己：“目前手头的团队有能力完成任务吗？他们是否有能力帮助公司实现规模与发展速度的倍增？”你或许对员工怀有忠诚之情，但同时你也必须完成自己的工作。现在是时候对领导团队进行评估，确定哪些方面需要做出改变。理想情况下，你早就应该考虑过这个问题，并且早已制定了相关计划来解决组织中的人才问题。如果没有的话，现在正是弥补这一缺点的时机！有一本关于如何管理人力资源的优秀书籍我很推荐，书名是《Move——CEO获取价值的行动指南》，作者是桑迪·奥格。 As the complexity of a company increases, an evolutionary process takes place. Some people can’t make the transition. Some people can. Some people need additional education or training. You can invest in people; you can help them by sponsoring their MBAs or to get further certification. It’s incumbent on us as employers to invest in our people and prepare them for the next level. At the same time, it’s vital for the employer to recognize when a person doesn’t have the capability and needs to be let go.随着企业复杂性的增加，企业会经历一种进化过程。有些人无法适应这种变化，而有些人则能适应。还有一些人需要接受额外的教育或培训。你可以投资于员工，可以通过资助他们攻读MBA或获取其他资格证书来帮助他们成长。作为雇主，我们有责任投资于员工，为他们迎接新的挑战做好准备。同时，雇主也必须能够识别出那些不具备相应能力、需要被解雇的员工。
It’s better to transition them out early rather than slow down the process. Evaluate everyone holding a key position and take action swiftly. I once attended a leadership summit sponsored by my current private equity firm where the topic of the session was human capital. A question was thrown out and debated by more than fifty CEOs—specifically, “When is the right time to make a move and take action on a person who appears to be struggling in a key position?” The collective wisdom in the room, based on hundreds of years of combined managerial experience at the most senior of levels, was “the very first time you think that action might be necessary.”最好尽早让他们退出现有岗位，而不是拖长这个过程。对所有担任关键职位的人进行评估，并迅速采取行动。我曾参加过由我目前所在的私募股权公司主办的一次领导力峰会，会议的主题是人力资源管理。会上有一位CEO提出了一个问题，五十多位CEO就此展开了讨论。具体问题是：“当发现某人在关键职位上表现不佳时，何时才是采取行动的合适时机？”在场的各位专家凭借他们数百年的管理经验给出了答案：“就是你第一次认为有必要采取行动的那一刻。” I know in my own company that I am running today, I gave everyone in a senior leadership position a good six-month opportunity to succeed. As Rose, I was new to the company and wanted to take the time to evaluate key players. Two years down the road, ten of twelve direct reports are new people who did not hold their current position when I first arrived or new positions that didn’t exist when I started. Those who didn’t make it were very good people, but change was necessary to alter trajectory. With every new leader who has arrived, they too have also turned over key leaders or added new ones where needed. The result: revenue is up over 50 percent in two years, and EBITDA is up by over 200 percent.在我目前管理的这家公司里，我给了所有担任高级管理职务的员工充足的时间——长达六个月的时间——去证明自己的能力。当初我刚加入这家公司时，还是个新人，因此需要花时间来评估那些关键岗位上的员工。两年后，我的十二名直接下属中有十人是新加入公司的人；他们当初并不担任现在的职位，或者所担任的职位在我刚来时还根本不存在。那些没能成功留任的人都是非常优秀的人，但为了改变公司的发展轨迹，变革是必要的。每一位新上任的领导者也都对关键岗位的人员进行了调整，或在需要的地方补充了新成员。结果如何呢？两年内公司的营收增长了50%以上，EBITDA则增长了200%以上。
Taking action on a human level isn’t always easy. Oftentimes when a new coach takes over a team, changes are made to key players in order to change the trajectory. In my company, we have an inner circle that reviews talent in key positions on a monthly basis. Watching key leaders, interacting with them, mentoring them, and investing in their knowledge is important to sustainable success. I am currently sponsoring four rising stars who are pursuing their MBAs.在个人层面上采取行动并不总是一件容易的事。通常情况下，当一位新教练接手一支球队时，会调整一些关键球员的位置，以期改变球队的发展轨迹。在我所在的公司里，我们有一个内部团队，每月会对那些担任关键职位的员工进行评估。关注这些关键领导者，与他们互动、指导他们，并投资于他们的知识积累，对于实现公司的持续成功至关重要。目前，我正在资助四位正在攻读MBA学位的有为青年。

9. EBITDA: It’s a Different Ball Game

As we touched on earlier, EBITDA is a key factor in the private equity world. The term comes from the acronym for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Why is this number important? What’s the game here?正如我们之前提到的，EBITDA在私募股权领域是一个至关重要的指标。这个术语代表“息税折旧及摊销前利润”。为什么这个数值如此重要？其背后的逻辑是什么呢？ EBITDA is the level playing field on which all companies are valued by private equity. It’s how your company was valued when the private equity group bought it, and it’s how other firms will value it when the company is sold in the future.EBITDA是私募股权机构用来评估所有公司的统一标准。私募股权集团收购你的公司时，就是用这个标准来评估其价值的；而将来该公司被出售时，其他机构也会用同样的标准来评估其价值。
Line Items明细项目 How EBITDA is determined involves a shift in thinking. The two categories impacted on the financial statement are operating expenses (opex) and capital expenses (capex).EBITDA的计算方法需要人们改变原有的思维方式。对财务报表产生影响的两个项目是运营费用与资本支出。
Opex lowers EBITDA because operating expenses are “above the line.” Examples include operating leases for equipment and salaries. Capex doesn’t lower EBITDA—and won’t lower enterprise value with future buyers unless there is too much of it, because capital expenses are “below the line.” Examples include buying office equipment or vehicles outright. One exception to note is real estate. Private equity does not want to tie up capital and assume the liability and cyclical risk of owning real estate because it is not time and capital efficient. Josh should have sold any owned real estate prior to selling the company or moved it to a different legal entity and put in place a fair market value lease with the company.运营费用会降低EBITDA，因为这些费用属于“营业成本”范畴。例如设备租赁费用和员工工资。而资本支出则不会降低EBITDA；除非资本支出规模过大，否则也不会对企业的价值产生负面影响——因为资本支出属于“非营业成本”范畴。例如购买办公设备或车辆的行为就属于资本支出。需要特别注意的是房地产相关支出。私募股权投资者通常不愿占用资本来承担持有房地产所带来的负债及周期性风险，因为这种投资方式在时间和资本利用效率方面都不理想。乔希本应在出售公司之前处理掉所有持有的房地产，或者将其转移至另一个法律实体，并与公司签订一份反映其公允市场价值的租赁协议。
This mysterious “line” is a place you can look at on the financial statement for a company. At the top is revenue, followed by direct expenses. These are costs associated with servicing revenue or manufacturing a product. Below that are the sales and general administration (SG&A) expenses, next comes the EBITDA line, and beneath that you have the basement, which is where your taxes, depreciation (capex), and amortization hides. In all seriousness, if you need help understanding your financial statements, sit with your CFO and go through all the various components. All companies report slightly differently, so I’m painting with very broad brushstrokes.这条神秘的“线条”出现在公司的财务报表中。最上方是营业收入，其后是直接费用——这些费用是与创造营业收入或生产产品相关的成本。再往下是销售及一般管理费用，接着是EBITDA指标，而最底部则隐藏着各项税费、折旧费用以及摊销费用。说真的，如果你需要帮助理解财务报表，那就与你的首席财务官一起仔细研究其中的各个组成部分。不同公司的财务报表呈现方式略有差异，所以我这里的描述只是大致的情况而已。 On a financial statement, EBITDA is just an arbitrary place where you’re spitting out earnings in some type of normalized fashion. EBITDA should not be confused with cash profit. A lot of activity takes place below this line. A public company tends to be valued at a price-to-earnings ratio: the price of the stock versus the earnings of the stock in a public environment. In private companies that are private equity owned and operated, valuation is made at the EBITDA line. From there, each industry typically trades at a different multiple. So a company is normalized at the EBITDA line, and then if the industry trades at 10x, you’ll multiply EBITDA by ten to obtain the enterprise value.在财务报表中，EBITDA只是一个用来以某种标准化方式呈现盈利数据的指标罢了。切勿将EBITDA与现金利润混为一谈。实际上，公司的许多运营活动都发生在EBITDA指标所反映的盈利水平之下。对于上市公司而言，其估值通常是基于市盈率来确定的，即股票价格与该公司盈利水平的比值。而对于那些由私募股权机构拥有并经营的私营企业而言，其估值则是基于EBITDA指标来计算的。随后，不同行业的企业通常会按照不同的倍数进行估值。因此，首先需要将企业的盈利数据按照EBITDA的标准进行标准化处理；之后，如果该行业的估值倍数为10倍，那么就将EBITDA乘以10，就能得出该企业的整体估值了。
When it comes to operations and expenses, the mindset changes now that you’re a private equity-backed company. Your goal and objective is to trade operating expenses for capital expenses, within reason. If you put too much into capex, firms will start to discount earnings because they’ll say you have too much capital expense. There’s a nuance here in how you think about running the business, because now you’re rewired to be thinking from an EBITDA-friendly perspective versus a cash perspective. Overall, these are subtle changes at best, not a lever for growth. You’re just looking to become EBITDA efficient by rethinking operating strategy. The game changed, and I want you to understand the nuances.在运营与开支方面，作为一家获得私募股权支持的公司，你的思维方式必须相应改变。你的目标是在合理范围内用运营开支替代资本开支。如果你在资本开支上投入过多，投资者就会开始对公司的盈利能力产生怀疑，因为他们会认为你的资本开支过于庞大。在经营企业的方式上，你需要调整思维模式——现在你应该从有利于提升EBITDA的角度来思考问题，而不仅仅是从现金流的角度出发。总体而言，这些变化其实只是细微的调整，并非推动公司增长的利器。你的目标仅仅是通过重新审视运营策略来提高EBITDA效率。游戏规则已经变了，我希望你能理解其中的细微差别。 For example, wages paid to employees are an operating expense and will lower EBITDA. However, if you hired a consultant to come in for a one-time engagement to help you make something more efficient, you might pay more for the consultant than the salaried employee, but as a one-time expenditure, it gets added back to EBITDA. It’s beneficial in a private equity environment to use consultants for nonrecurring special projects versus hiring additional employees who remain an ongoing expense. That’s the financial reason to use consultants, but there are also operational reasons. You are renting expertise that brings broad, best practices obtained from literally dozens of similar engagements with other companies. More on consultants in chapter 13.例如，支付给员工的工资属于运营费用，会降低EBITDA数值。然而，如果你聘请咨询师进行一次性的项目咨询，以帮助你提升运营效率，那么你为咨询师支付的费用可能会高于雇佣固定员工的成本。但由于这是一次性支出，因此这部分费用会被重新计入EBITDA中。在私募股权环境中，使用咨询师处理非重复性的特殊项目要比雇佣员工更有优势——因为雇佣员工会带来持续的运营成本。这就是使用咨询师的财务方面的原因，此外还有运营方面的考虑。你购买的其实是那些来自其他企业类似项目的丰富经验与最佳实践。关于咨询师的更多内容，将在第13章中详细阐述。

10. Organic Growth

There are strategies in the way private equity is used to help you grow your business. Virtually every company owned by private equity focuses on three levers of growth that can be used to increase shareholder value: organic growth, margin expansion, and merger and acquisition. This chapter focuses on the first of the three.在利用私募股权帮助企业发展方面，存在一些有效的策略。几乎所有由私募股权机构持有的企业都会重点运用三种能够提升股东价值的增长方式：内生增长、利润率提升以及并购重组。本章将重点讨论其中的第一种方式。
What Is Organic Growth?什么是有机增长？ According to Investopedia, organic growth is the growth rate a company can achieve by increasing output and enhancing sales internally. This does not include profits or growth attributable to takeovers, acquisitions, or mergers. The goal is to increase revenue from current customers or finding new customers, but the company will essentially do the same thing it did before the private equity firm purchased it. There are two components to organic growth: price and amount of product/service sold.根据Investopedia的定义，有机增长是指企业通过提升内部生产能力及增强销售业绩来实现的增长速度。这种增长不包括因收购、兼并或其他外部因素所带来的利润或增长。其核心目标在于增加现有客户的消费额或开发新客户，而且企业在实现这种增长的过程中所采取的措施应与私募股权机构收购之前的经营方式保持一致。有机增长包含两个关键要素：产品/服务的价格以及销售数量。
Price价格 If you sell widgets, you can increase revenue by either selling more widgets or selling the same amount at a higher price. Price is often overlooked because it involves difficult analysis of your current customer base and price elasticity in the marketplace. Can you add a few percent to the prices you’re charging? I think you can with some concerted effort.如果你销售小部件产品，那么增加收入的方法有两条：要么销售更多的产品，要么以更高的价格销售相同数量的产品。价格这个因素常常被忽视，因为要分析现有客户群体以及市场中的价格弹性其实相当困难。你能否将售价提高几个百分点呢？我认为只要付出一定的努力，这是完全可行的。
Sometimes companies get locked into a product or service pricing mentality that hasn’t allowed for adjustment in decades. The concern is that customers will leave if you raise your price, but the reality is that every other product has increased in the past twenty years, and yours should, too. My suggestion is that companies review their prices at least annually. Inflationary wages increase, benefits costs increase, the cost of gasoline might increase, among other factors. These are all operating expenses. It’s incumbent on the company to constantly evaluate the price it charges for products and services and to raise prices when it can to provide coverage for that. I believe strongly in testing the waters on price in multiple increments across various markets and seeing how increased price impacts sales.有时企业会陷入一种固定的产品或服务定价模式，这种模式几十年来都未曾发生过调整。人们担心的是，如果提高价格，顾客就会流失。但事实是，在过去二十年里，其他所有产品的价格都上涨了，你的产品价格也理应随之上调。我的建议是，企业至少应每年重新审视一次自己的定价。工资因通货膨胀而上涨，福利成本增加，汽油价格也可能上升，还有其他诸多因素需要考虑。这些都是企业的运营开支。企业有责任不断评估自己所提供的产品和服务的价格，并在适当的时候提高价格，以弥补这些开支。我强烈建议企业可以在不同市场分阶段测试价格调整的效果，看看提价会对销量产生怎样的影响。
Consider airlines. First, they began adding fuel surcharges to the price of a ticket. Now they add a baggage fee if you fly a particular class. As their costs increase, they find ways to pass that on to the consumer. In 2017, charging baggage fees added $4.6 billion in revenue to airlines without adding any real cost to service. Let’s face it, we always traveled with luggage before—and still do today. In retail, things are always “new and improved,” which according to an old joke, typically means, you “get less and pay more!”以航空公司为例。起初，它们只是在机票价格上附加燃油附加费；后来，如果乘客选择特定舱位，又额外收取行李费。随着运营成本的上升，它们总会想办法将这些成本转嫁给消费者。2017年，收取行李费为航空公司带来了46亿美元的收入，而这些费用并未增加航空服务的实际成本。说实话，过去我们出行时总是带着行李，现在依然如此。在零售业，产品总是被宣传为“全新升级版”，但根据一句老笑话，这意味着“得到的更少，支付的更多”！
Finding Blue Ocean寻找蓝海市场 For those of you who have obtained your MBA, you may have heard the term blue ocean, first coined by Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in their 2005 book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. Blue ocean in this context relates to finding new opportunities for organic growth and is centered on the concept of pivoting away from red ocean (water that is red from the blood of competition) in favor of new markets with little to no opposition. This provides you with new opportunities to accelerate organic growth by serving adjacent markets that historically have been untapped.对于那些已经获得MBA学位的人来说，你们可能听说过“蓝海”这个概念。这一术语最初是由W·金·陈教授与雷内·莫博涅教授在2005年出版的《蓝海战略》一书中提出的。在这里，“蓝海”指的是寻找实现有机增长的新机会，其核心思想是摆脱“红海”竞争的束缚，转向那些几乎不存在竞争的新市场。这样一来，企业就能通过服务于那些以往未被开发的相邻市场，获得加速有机增长的新机遇。
In Florida, people were dying in assisted care facilities because they didn’t have refrigeration or HVAC to help in meeting their medical needs. Our company could have been rolling trucks to assisted care facilities to fix air-conditioning or refrigeration just as easily as we could have been going to grocery stores. Out of that disaster and that human tragedy, it opened our vision to a new line of customers.在佛罗里达州，人们因护理机构缺乏制冷设备或暖通空调系统而无法得到必要的医疗照顾，最终不幸离世。我们的公司本可以像前往杂货店一样轻松地将维修设备运送到这些护理机构，修复其中的空调或制冷系统。正是这场灾难与这场人间悲剧，让我们发现了新的客户群体。 We started thinking about our own business. We started pivoting a little to the left and right of the customer base that we’d been servicing and redefined our customer as anyone who thought of refrigeration and HVAC as being mission critical to their operations, and we suddenly found billions of dollars in new market potential that had not historically been the target of this particular company. Additional pivots since then have increased our total addressable market from $5 billion to more than $50 billion. Those pivots helped increase our ability to deliver sustained organic growth.我们开始考虑自己创业的事。我们稍微调整了目标客户群体，将服务对象扩展到那些认为制冷与暖通空调系统对其运营至关重要的所有客户。就这样，我们突然发现了价值数十亿美元的新市场机会——这些市场此前从未成为这家公司的目标。此后的一系列战略调整使我们的总目标市场规模从50亿美元增长到了500亿美元以上。这些调整极大地提升了我们实现持续有机增长的能力。
Another example: Years ago, I took over as president of a medical device repair company. When I arrived, I found that the business model had failed. The company had started in the 1970s and failed to adapt to changing times.另一个例子：几年前，我接任了一家医疗设备维修公司的总裁一职。到我接手时，我发现该公司的商业模式已经失效了。这家公司成立于20世纪70年代，却未能适应时代的变化。 The customer base was hospitals that contracted with the company to provide services for all the devices within the hospital. Those devices fell into two categories: biomedical (monitoring equipment, IV pumps, heart monitors) and imaging (MRI, CT, ultrasound) equipment.客户群体是那些与该公司签订合同、要求其为医院内所有设备提供维护服务的医院。这些设备可分为两类：生物医学设备（监测仪器、静脉输液泵、心电监测仪）以及影像设备（核磁共振仪、CT扫描仪、超声波诊断仪）。
In the 1970s and 1980s, the company would put their own people inside to handle the biomedical equipment and outsourced the imaging equipment to be repaired. Over time, the biomedical equipment stayed the same, but the imaging equipment evolved. Superconducting magnets in MRI and consumable X-ray tubes on a CT scanner might cost upward of $100,000. The business model no longer worked, because outsourcing this sophisticated work became too expensive.在20世纪70年代和80年代，该公司会安排自己的员工来维护生物医学设备，而将成像设备的维修工作外包出去。随着时间的推移，生物医学设备几乎没有发生变化，但成像设备却不断发展进步。核磁共振设备中的超导磁体以及CT扫描仪中的X射线管这类易耗品，其价格可能高达10万美元以上。这种商业模式已经不再可行了，因为将这类高精度设备的维修工作外包出去的成本实在太高了。 The company was now providing service on a part of their business that had become more or less commoditized. They were losing money. The company had failed to recognize that they could no longer be an insurance provider in imaging. They had to do imaging service because that was in their contract, but they couldn’t keep up this path. I came in, took a look at the business and marketplace, and decided to do one small acquisition of a parts company. Having our own parts would cover the biggest expense on the imaging equipment repair. I then built an imaging repair service arm inside the company.这家公司如今正在提供一项已基本商品化的服务。然而他们却在亏损。他们没有意识到自己再也无法作为影像服务领域的保险公司存在了。虽然根据合同他们必须提供影像服务，但这样的经营模式已无法持续下去。我接手后，分析了公司的业务状况及市场环境，决定收购一家小型零部件供应商。拥有自己的零部件库存就能解决影像设备维修这一最大开支问题。随后，我在公司内部建立了影像设备维修服务部门。 Instead of doing only self-performance on biomedical equipment, we could now also self-service imaging equipment in the radiology department. This changed the financial dynamics, and the company became highly profitable. It was a failed business model that we changed, allowing us to increase margin, become more competitive, and sell to new customers, which ultimately drove organic growth. Because I bought a company to help facilitate the pivot, increase margins, and enable organic growth, this is also an example of combining all three growth strategies in one move and achieving a “triple lindy” (referring to a level of difficulty in a dive exhibited by Rodney Dangerfield in the 1986 comedy Back to School).我们不再仅仅专注于对生物医学设备的自主维护与操作，现在还能对放射科的成像设备进行自助维护。这一改变彻底改变了公司的盈利模式，使其变得极具盈利能力。我们原本采用了一种失败的商业模式，后来对其进行了调整，从而提升了利润率，增强了竞争力，并成功开拓了新客户群体，最终实现了企业的有机增长。因为我收购这家公司正是为了推动这种转型、提升利润率并实现有机增长，所以这也可以被视为将三种增长策略结合在一起、一举实现“三重飞跃”的典范——这种“三重飞跃”类似于罗德尼·丹杰菲尔德在1986年喜剧《重返校园》中所表演的高难度跳水动作。
A lot of times, companies get stale or stagnant, and organic growth drops off. That doesn’t mean that organic growth is unavailable. It simply means that people need to rethink, retool, redesign, and potentially pivot.很多时候，企业会变得僵化或停滞不前，其自然增长速度也会下降。但这并不意味着自然增长就不再可能实现了。事实上，这意味着企业需要重新思考、调整策略、重新设计运营模式，甚至可能需要彻底转变发展方向。
Questions to Ask Yourself需要问自己的问题 If we hire more salespeople or restructure sales strategy, will we grow faster?如果我们招聘更多销售人员或调整销售策略，我们的增长速度会更快吗？ Do we have a good balance of hunters and farmers?我们这里的猎人与农民的比例是否处于理想状态？ Is our sales process representing all of our products and services adequately?我们的销售流程是否充分体现了我们所有的产品与服务？ Are we selling what our customer wants or trying to force them into purchasing the product/service we happen to sell?我们是在销售顾客真正想要的产品和服务，还是试图强迫他们购买我们恰好在销售的产品和服务呢？ Can we tier our products and services to widen customer appeal and capture incremental volume?我们能否对产品和服务进行分级，从而扩大客户群体并增加销量？ When is the last time the company name/website/marketing material was updated?该公司名称/网站/营销材料最后一次更新是在什么时候？ Are we challenging the status quo or just doing things the way they’ve always been done?我们是在挑战现状，还是只是沿用一直以来惯用的方式行事呢？ Can we pivot to find blue ocean?我们能否转变策略，去寻找那些“蓝海市场”呢？

11. Margin Expansion

Keys to Margin Expansion扩大利润空间的关键因素 From my experience having run, built, and sold three different mature, national companies, we were able to grow EBITDA margins significantly in each case. If you can take the business you have and increase the profit margin, you’ll increase the EBITDA. Organic growth then allows you to accelerate the sale of new widgets, new customers, and new services more profitably.根据我经营、创建并出售过三家成熟型全国性企业的经验，我们在每一种情况下都能显著提升EBITDA利润率。如果你能提升现有业务的利润率，那么EBITDA自然也会增加。而通过有机增长，你就能更高效地实现新产品的销售、新增客户以及新服务的提供，同时进一步提升盈利能力。 Invest in Technology to Drive Productivity投资技术以提高生产效率 Technology can be vital to a company’s growth. There are so many ways that software and devices can transform your platform, from sales to marketing to operations.技术对企业的成长至关重要。软件与各类设备能够在销售、营销以及运营等各个环节显著提升企业的运营效率。
We moved from index cards to technology, taking an existing process and making it much more efficient. We didn’t raise prices, and we didn’t add a single customer; however, we lowered the cost of servicing the revenue, which made the collectors more efficient and vastly improved our margins. Every dollar of margin gained in this fashion drops right to EBITDA and creates the most shareholder value of the three growth levers because the incremental cost of sustaining is very low in comparison to the benefit.我们从使用索引卡的方式转变为运用技术，对原有的流程进行了优化，使其效率大幅提升。我们既没有提高价格，也没有新增任何客户；不过，我们降低了获取收入的成本，从而提升了运营效率，同时大幅增加了利润空间。通过这种方式获得的每一美元利润都会直接体现在EBITDA指标上，这也是三种增长方式中最能创造股东价值的方式——因为维持这种增长状态的增量成本相对于所带来的收益而言非常低。
Challenge the Status Quo挑战现状 It’s always critical to challenge the status quo. People become very complacent, especially in a mature company. Processes that have existed for years, decades, or generations are never reconsidered. Many companies adopt a mentality of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” What they don’t realize is that what isn’t broke may not be efficient.挑战现状始终至关重要。人们往往会变得非常安于现状，尤其是在一家成熟的企业中。那些存在了多年、几十年甚至几代人的旧有流程从来都不会被重新审视。许多企业秉持“如果没有坏掉，就不用修理”的观念。但他们没有意识到的是，那些看似没有坏掉的流程实际上可能效率低下。
Status quo often leads to mediocrity. To be a champion, you have to push yourself constantly and have people around who will push you. It’s what creates a championship team, and it’s why some teams are perennial favorites to win championships. Every practice, every game, every shot, every at bat, every pass, everything matters. In business, disruption is key. It starts with a question: “Why do we do the things that we do?”现状往往会导致平庸。要想成为冠军，就必须不断挑战自我，同时身边也需要有能推动你前进的人。正是这样的环境造就了冠军队伍，也解释了为什么有些队伍总能成为夺冠的热门人选。每一次训练、每一场比赛、每一次投篮、每一次击球、每一次传球——所有这些都很重要。在商业领域，颠覆性创新才是关键。这一切都始于这样一个问题：“我们为什么要做我们现在正在做的事情？”
As I mentioned in chapter 7, every time I come to a new company, I begin with a discovery period and interview the employees. I spend time asking questions, seeking opinions, and doing ride-alongs with the major job classes to better understand what people do at work. Spreadsheets aren’t sufficient to see the entire picture. I want a vision of what these people do every day. I don’t make assumptions; rather, I try to find out what I can learn from the employees themselves. In essence, I’m a scout for a baseball team. I’m looking at the team we’re going to play next week so I can understand what they do, how they do it, and how I can take advantage of it when it comes time to play them.正如我在第七章中提到的，每次来到一家新公司时，我都会先进入一个观察期，与员工们进行交流。我会花时间提问、征求他们的意见，并跟随不同岗位的员工实际工作，以便更深入地了解他们的工作内容。仅靠电子表格是无法全面了解实际情况的。我想要了解这些员工每天的具体工作内容。我不会妄下结论，而是努力从员工们自身那里获取信息。从本质上说，我就像一支棒球队的球探——我在观察下周将对阵的对手，以便了解他们的作战方式、工作方法，以及如何在比赛中利用这些优势。 I make observations, I watch behaviors, and I look for strengths, opportunities, and weaknesses.我进行观察，留意各种行为表现，并寻找其中的优势、机会以及不足之处。
At the laundry company, we talked about improving margin by implementing technology to improve the routes. On my original ride-alongs back in 2003, I learned that each collector carried hundreds of keys on a string attached to their belt. As they would go from location to location, someone who had been doing the job for years could reach down and, with muscle memory, pull out the correct key to service a particular machine. To make it even more complicated, each route had its own string of keys, a different one for each day, and a different one for each route.在这家洗衣公司，我们讨论了通过运用技术优化送衣路线来提高利润空间。2003年我初次随员工外出工作时发现，每位送衣员腰带上都挂着一串钥匙，钥匙数量多达数百把。当他们穿梭于不同地点时，那些从事这份工作多年的员工只需凭肌肉记忆就能迅速取出所需的钥匙，从而操作相应的机器。更复杂的是，每条送衣路线都配有专属的钥匙串——每天使用的钥匙不同，不同路线使用的钥匙也不一样。 I was amazed at the complexity and the skill of these collectors. I was like, “Let me try this.” I took a string of keys, and each time I tried, I reached for the wrong damn key. I had to painstakingly correlate each key and machine with their numbers on the index cards. It took me hours to complete one roomful of machines. I kept thinking, This collector moves quickly from muscle memory, and he’s doing a great job. But what if I put him on a different route? Or what if he retires and I need to bring someone else in? Productivity would drop off dramatically.这些收藏者的熟练程度与操作技巧让我惊叹不已。我心想：“让我也试试看。”我拿了一串钥匙，可每次尝试时都拿错了钥匙。我不得不费力地将每把钥匙与机器上的编号对应起来。整整一个房间的机器我都花了几个小时才完成配对工作。我不断想：这个收藏者能熟练运用肌肉记忆进行操作，确实做得非常出色。但要是让他换一条工作路线会怎样呢？又或者他退休了，而我需要另找他人来接替他的工作，那工作效率肯定会大幅下降。 When I got back to the office, I started asking why the hell we used this process. Inside every branch office, there was a room with little drawers for all the different keys used in each city. There was a steel cage for security and someone whose job was literally to watch the keys to the kingdom. There were cameras on the wall and loss prevention people watching the guy who watched the keys. This security was amazingly detailed but also drastically inefficient. I asked a collector why he did it this way. He had no idea; it was just how he had been trained. I kept asking until finally someone told me the story behind this methodology.当我回到办公室后，我开始质疑我们究竟为什么要采用这种做法。在每一家分公司里，都有一间房间，里面装有各种抽屉，用来存放每个城市使用的不同钥匙。为确保安全，这些钥匙被放在一个钢制箱子里，而且还有专人专门负责看管这些钥匙。墙上装有摄像头，还有防损人员负责监督负责看管钥匙的那个人。这种安保措施细致入微，但效率却极低。我问过一位负责收钥匙的工作人员为什么要这样操作，他根本不知道原因，只是按照培训时的要求来做的。我不断追问，直到终于有人向我讲出了这种做法的由来。
Back in the 1960s, the biggest theft problem the company had was lock picks. These guys didn’t look like criminals. They wore nice clothes and would walk into a laundry, pick the locks on the machines, take the quarters, put the machines back together, wipe them off, and disappear. The collectors would appear, and the money would be gone.20世纪60年代，该公司面临的最严重的盗窃问题来自开锁工具。那些窃贼看起来并不像罪犯——他们穿着体面，走进洗衣店，打开洗衣机的锁，取走里面的硬币，然后把机器重新组装好、擦干净，接着消失得无影无踪。等到收钱的人到来时，钱早已不翼而飞了。 This ended up being the most critical problem the company faced. It was so rampant that they took extreme measures to defeat the lock picks. They had manufacturers create special locks with keyways that no locksmith in the country could get and make keys for. It was proprietary to the company. Then they created specific rules. You couldn’t use the same key in the same room. You couldn’t use the same key more than a certain number of times in the same city, and you couldn’t use the same key more than a certain number of times in the whole company.这最终成了该公司面临的最严重的问题。这一问题极为普遍，以至于他们不得不采取极端措施来阻止他人使用开锁工具。他们让制造商生产出带有特殊锁芯结构的锁具，全国没有任何锁匠能够打开这些锁并配制相应的钥匙——这些锁芯结构属于该公司的专利技术。此外，他们还制定了具体的规定：不能在同一间房间里使用同一把钥匙；在同一座城市内，同一把钥匙的使用次数不能超过规定的上限；在整个公司范围内，同一把钥匙的使用次数也不能超过规定的上限。 I heard the story and went straight to loss prevention and asked when was the last time somebody picked a lock on one of our machines. “They haven’t done that since the 1960s.”听到这个故事后，我立刻去找防损部门，询问上一次有人试图撬开我们机器的锁是什么时候。“自20世纪60年代以来，就再没人这么干过了。” Great, problem solved. But is it necessary today? Has the threat shifted?太好了，问题解决了。但如今真的还有这个必要吗？威胁形式已经发生变化了吗？ The average criminal today is going in with a sledgehammer to beat the hell out of a machine until it capitulates and gives up its quarters! The loss prevention team defeats that problem with an entirely different strategy that has nothing to do with keying.如今的罪犯通常会使用大锤猛击机器，直到其不堪重负、最终“投降”并交出存储的数据。而防损团队则采用了一种完全不同的策略来应对这一问题，这种策略与使用钥匙无关。 With my newfound knowledge, we started an initiative called “One Room, One Key, One Lock.” We still have limited the number of times you use a key, but if you walk into a room and have the right key, you can open every machine in that room. Then you roll that key over your key string, and when you get to the next room, you pick up the second key and that opens every machine in that room. The result was another huge increase in productivity.凭借我新学到的知识，我们启动了一个名为“一个房间，一把钥匙，一把锁”的项目。虽然我们仍然限制了钥匙的使用次数，但只要你拿着正确的钥匙走进某个房间，就能打开该房间内的所有设备。之后你只需将这把钥匙挂回钥匙串上，当进入下一个房间时，再取用第二把钥匙，就能打开那个房间内的所有设备。这一举措再次显著提升了工作效率。
Looking back at the original problem, the process was grounded in very good science. There was a great reason they implemented the system, but the problem and threat had changed, and nobody adapted the process. In defeating the problem, a new one was created. Nobody ever asked, “Why do we do it this way, is it still relevant, and is there a better way?”回顾最初的问题，相关流程是建立在非常扎实的科学依据之上的。他们实施这套系统的初衷十分合理，但问题与威胁的性质已经发生了变化，然而却没有人对流程进行相应的调整。在解决旧问题的过程中，新的问题又产生了。从来没有人问过：“我们为什么要用这种方式来做这件事？这种做法现在还适用吗？是否存在更好的方法？” When you combined simplified keying with our other initiative for more efficient routing, it led to a total increase in employee productivity of 42 percent. The result was millions of dollars in additional EBITDA. It also led to more quarters, but as I mentioned, the company addressed that problem already with new vaults and heavier trucks!当我们将简化键盘操作的方式与我们为提升路由效率而推出的其他举措结合起来时，员工的整体工作效率提升了42%。这一变革带来了数百万美元的额外EBITDA收益。同时，公司的运营季度数量也有所增加。不过正如我之前提到的，公司已经通过使用新的保险库和更重的卡车来解决这一问题了。

12. Buy and Build

The most popular way that private equity likes to grow a company is to use the “buy and build” strategy. With IRR, time is never your friend, and unfortunately, organic growth and margin expansion take time. While they are still ultra-important, because they maximize value and create sustainable growth, the fastest way to grow a business is to buy other businesses and bring them on board. Create a platform company that the private equity firm will build from.私募股权机构常用的企业发展方式是采用“收购后再整合”策略。从内部投资回报率的角度来看，时间从来都不是你的盟友；遗憾的是，实现有机增长和提升利润率需要花费时间。尽管这两种方式依然至关重要——因为它们能实现价值最大化并促进企业的可持续增长——但最快的发展途径其实是收购其他企业并将其纳入自己的体系之中。这样一来，私募股权机构就能建立起一个可供进一步发展的平台型企业。
Mergers and Acquisitions并购 There are three reasons why you typically seek to buy and build, also known as completing mergers and acquisitions.通常人们会选择进行收购与整合，其原因有三点。 The first is to fill a strategic need (as when my medical company bought the imaging parts company to support our technicians to service the imaging equipment). This helps the company pivot left, pivot right, find new blue ocean, and find new markets to serve. The second reason is to build density in existing geography, and the third reason is to expand the geography that you cover by launching into new territories.第一，是为了满足某种战略需求——比如我的医疗公司收购那家影像设备零部件供应商，就是为了支持我们的技术人员维护相关设备。这样做有助于企业调整发展方向、开拓新市场，从而找到新的“蓝海”机会。第二，是为了在现有市场区域内增强业务覆盖密度；第三，则是通过进入新地区来扩大业务覆盖范围。 When I ran the laundry company, we purchased dozens of different companies and folded them into the parent entity. They were essentially doing similar work, and it was beneficial to build scale in order to be more efficient operationally. We used these acquisitions to build our route density, enter new geography, and open new regions—even in new countries. When you have a lot of guys in trucks, which is what a route-based service business is all about, you want them spending their time working on equipment. Time spent behind a windshield driving is a productivity waster. That laundry company had so much density in some cities that our field employees (like a UPS driver) could literally spend their entire day working within a few mile radius.当我经营那家洗衣公司时，我们收购了数十家不同的企业，并将它们整合到母公司旗下。这些企业其实从事的工作性质相似，通过合并来实现规模扩张，从而提升运营效率。我们利用这些收购行动来增加服务网点密度，进入新的市场区域，甚至在新的国家开设分支机构。对于以送货服务为主的企业而言，员工们大部分时间都应该在操作设备上，而不是耗费在驾驶汽车上——后者纯粹是浪费生产力。那家洗衣公司在一些城市的服务网点非常密集，我们的外勤员工（就像UPS的快递员一样）实际上可以在方圆几英里的范围内完成一整天的工作。 You can use mergers and acquisitions to build density in existing markets, enter new markets, or solve strategic problems, but the most important aspect of this strategy is that it grows the company very rapidly. When you fold in another company, you get exponential growth. Private equity predominantly uses additional debt in order to execute this strategy. I call it OPM: other people’s money. Using additional debt to fund most of, or all of, the purchase price is very efficient and preserves the private equity funds capital for other projects.你可以利用并购在现有市场中扩大市场份额、进入新市场或解决战略难题，但这一策略最重要的意义在于它能促使企业实现快速成长。当一家企业兼并另一家企业时，其规模就能呈指数级扩张。私募股权机构通常会借助额外债务来实施这一策略。我把这种方式称为“利用他人的资金”——即借助外部债务来支付大部分或全部收购费用。这种做法非常高效，同时还能让私募股权机构的资金继续用于其他项目。
Acquiring Companies被收购公司 When a private equity platform buys a company with financing, it gets credit for pro forma EBITDA, including synergies. Synergies are positive gains that result from merging the two companies together. It can be like rolling two accounting departments or human resources departments into one, or it can be that you get a discount when purchasing parts because it’s a much larger purchase order. These synergies yield reductions in operating cost and increase profitability for the overall combined company. Lenders give the company credit for these synergies even before the deals are closed, which allows the company to borrow more money (debt) to fund the purchase of the acquisition target.当一家私募股权平台通过融资方式收购一家公司时，其财务报表中会体现包括协同效应在内的预估EBITDA数值。协同效应指的是两家公司合并后所带来的正面收益——这可能表现为将两个会计部门或人力资源部门合并为一个部门；也可能表现为因采购量增大而获得更优惠的采购价格。这些协同效应有助于降低运营成本，进而提升整个合并后企业的盈利能力。即使在交易完成之前，贷款方也会将这些协同效应计入该企业的信用评级中，从而使企业能够借入更多资金来支付收购费用。 Let’s say the platform company has 5x EBITDA in debt but is itself a company that sells for 10x. If the private equity firm can buy an add-on company for 5x EBITDA, it can use 100 percent debt financing because that equals the leverage of the parent. It’s a very popular method and an efficient way to scale and grow. If the firm pays more than the current leverage, some additional equity may need to come in.假设这家平台公司的债务规模是其EBITDA的5倍，但该公司的市值却是其EBITDA的10倍。如果私募股权公司能够以EBITDA的5倍价格收购一家相关企业，那么它就可以完全使用债务融资来进行收购，因为这样就能实现与母公司相同的杠杆比率。这是一种非常流行的方式，也是实现扩张和增长的有效途径。不过，如果私募股权公司支付的杠杆比率高于现有水平，就可能需要引入额外的股权资金。 How does this translate to shareholder value created? Simple. If the target company has pro forma $5 million in EBITDA and is bought for 5x, the purchase price would be $25 million. If the parent company sells for 10x, then the shareholder value created by this acquisition is 10x the $5 million EBITDA added ($50 million) minus the debt required to buy it ($25 million) for a total increase of shareholder value of $25 million. In this example, we added $25 million to shareholder value without spending one dime of the company’s or private equity firm’s money. That’s what OPM is all about! Now you know why it’s so popular for companies to buy other companies. Virtually a day doesn’t go by without a news report involving some big merger or acquisition.这如何转化为股东价值的创造呢？很简单。如果目标公司的预计EBITDA为500万美元，而收购价格是其EBITDA的5倍，那么收购成本就是2500万美元。如果母公司之后能以10倍的价格出售该目标公司，那么此次收购所带来的股东价值增加额就是500万美元EBITDA的10倍，即5000万美元；再减去收购所需的债务2500万美元，最终股东价值增加了2500万美元。在这个例子中，我们无需花费公司或私募股权基金的一分钱，就实现了2500万美元的股东价值增长。这就是所谓的“零现金收购”所带来的好处！现在你应该明白为什么企业收购其他公司会如此普遍了吧？几乎每天都有关于大型并购的新闻报道。
并购整合 Integrations are like game strategies. On any given day, two opposing teams have developed strategies on how they will attack the other team, exploiting weakness to put points, goals, or runs on the board. Like any action a company takes, an integration will go smoother when it’s well planned. You need an integration playbook that answers the following questions (and more):整合过程就如同游戏策略。在任何一天，两支对立的“队伍”都会制定出各自的攻击策略，旨在利用对方的弱点来取得分数、进球或胜利。正如企业实施的任何行动一样，只有经过周密规划，整合过程才能顺利进行。你需要一份能够回答以下问题（以及更多问题）的整合方案。 Are you going to remain two separate businesses or pull the second business in?你们是继续保持两家独立的公司，还是将第二家公司并入其中？ Is the entrepreneur or management team sticking around to join your team?那位企业家或管理团队会留下来加入你们的团队吗？ What are you going to do with the employees? Are the benefits different?你们打算如何对待这些员工？他们的福利会有所不同吗？ Is technology different? Is the software different? How do you bridge those gaps?技术有所不同吗？软件也有差异吗？那么该如何弥补这些差距呢？ What customers are they servicing? What customers are you servicing? Is there an overlap?他们在服务哪些客户？你在服务哪些客户？这两者之间有重叠吗？ Are the contracts different?这些合同有区别吗？
This playbook will take the integration and break it down into Gantt charts and time lines with tasks, owners, and an orderly flow. It requires a skill that most private equity firms can help with. They can deploy assets and resources from their own organization. They can also help make introductions to consulting groups that specialize in integrations.这份方案会将整合工作分解为一系列甘特图和时间表，明确各项任务的负责人及执行流程。这项工作需要特定的技能，而大多数私募股权公司都能提供帮助——他们可以调配自身组织的资产与资源，同时还能介绍那些专门从事整合服务的咨询机构。 A generic integration playbook should be on the shelf and adapted for specific situations as soon as you identify a target. Begin to look at how to integrate the business and what things will look like after the deal closes. When we purchased a laundry company in a new country, we needed experts to help us with the new laws and contracts. We hired a consulting group to help us plan for that acquisition and integration. The money was well spent and was an add back to EBITDA. The consultants had experience with large-scale integrations, and they could help us clearly identify potential issues.应提前准备好一套通用的整合方案，待确定目标后再根据具体情况对其进行调整。要尽早思考如何实现业务整合，以及交易完成后各项业务会呈现出怎样的状态。当我们收购一家位于新国家的洗衣公司时，我们需要专家来协助我们处理相关的法律法规及合同事宜。我们聘请了一个咨询团队来帮助我们制定收购及整合计划。这笔开支非常值得，且最终为我们的EBITDA带来了正面贡献。这些咨询专家拥有处理大规模业务整合的经验，他们能够帮助我们及时发现潜在问题。

13. The Role of Consultants

Consultants Help Surge咨询师的加入推动了业务量的激增 I spend a great deal of capital to work with consultants. They bring to the table not only tremendous knowledge and best practice sharing, but they also provide our company with surge capacity. They add enough boots on the ground to help us address a large-scale problem and manage that process with speed.我投入了大量资金聘请咨询公司。他们不仅带来了丰富的专业知识及最佳实践经验，还为我们的公司提供了额外的支持能力。他们派遣了大量专业人员来协助我们解决复杂问题，并确保相关流程能够高效、迅速地得以执行。

Conclusion

I’ve built three large companies following the methods defined in this book. I’ve had a great time and made a lot of money along the way. At the same time, it’s very intense! That IRR clock is ticking, and the private equity firms are anxious. There are a lot of people asking a lot of questions and requesting a lot of data. It’s a totally different ball game that runs at a greatly accelerated speed.我按照这本书中介绍的方法创建了三家大型企业。在这个过程中，我度过了非常愉快的时光，同时也赚到了很多钱。不过，与此同时，整个过程也异常紧张激烈！内部收益率的计算时限不断逼近，而那些私募股权公司则显得十分急切。有很多人提出各种问题，同时也要求获取大量数据。整个游戏规则完全不同了，而且进展速度也快得惊人。 You’re moving from high school sports through college to the professional level. Speed and intensity are different—not good or bad different, just different. It’s something you need to be aware of as you make the transition, because you don’t want to be caught off guard. Depending on how the governance goes and how hands-on or hands-off the private equity firm is, your emotions will be in play. This is why you need to make a good, properly aligned choice.你正从高中体育赛事逐步过渡到大学体育，最终进入职业体育领域。在这个过程中，运动的速度与强度都会发生变化——这种变化并无好坏之分，只是有所不同而已。在完成这一过渡时，你必须意识到这一点，否则就可能会措手不及。根据相关管理机制的运作方式，以及私募股权公司的干预程度，你的情绪也会受到影响。正因如此，你必须做出一个明智且符合自身实际情况的选择。

About the Author

About the Author关于作者 Adam Coffey has spent almost 20 years as President and CEO of three national service companies, each in different industries. Adam’s first company, Masterplan, was a medical device service company owned by Three Cities Research (NYC) and Camden Partners (Baltimore) that was subsequently sold after his departure to Berkshire Partners (Boston) in 2007 and later became a division of Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) in 2011. Adam’s second company, WASH Multifamily Laundry, a commercial laundry service company, started as a family owned business that during Coffey’s tenure was subsequently sold in 2008 to Code Hennessy & Simmons (Chicago) and was then sold again in 2015 to EQT Partners (Stockholm). Adam is currently building his third company, CoolSys, a commercial refrigeration and HVAC service company for the Audax Group (Boston).亚当·科菲曾担任三家全国性服务公司的总裁兼首席执行官，这三家公司分别属于不同的行业。他的第一家公司名为Masterplan，这是一家医疗设备服务企业，最初由Three Cities Research（总部位于纽约）和Camden Partners（总部位于巴尔的摩）共同拥有。在亚当于2007年离开该公司后，它被卖给了Berkshire Partners（总部位于波士顿）；2011年，该公司又成为了Aramark公司的一个业务部门。他的第二家公司WASH Multifamily Laundry是一家商业洗衣服务企业，最初是一家家族企业。在亚当任职期间，该公司于2008年被卖给了Code Hennessy & Simmons（总部位于芝加哥）；2015年，它又被卖给了EQT Partners（总部位于斯德哥尔摩）。目前，亚当正在创立他的第三家公司CoolSys，这是一家为Audax集团（总部位于波士顿）提供商业制冷及暖通空调服务的企业。 Known for building strong employee centered cultures, and for executing a buy and build strategy, Coffey is highly sought after by private equity and is considered an expert in running industrial service businesses. Adam is a former GE executive, an alumnus of the UCLA Anderson Executive Program, a pilot, and is a Veteran of the US Army. He is married, a father, and makes his home in Yorba Linda, California. Adam can be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/adamecoffey.科菲以其致力于打造以员工为中心的企业文化，以及实施“收购后再进行内部建设”的发展战略而闻名。因此，他深受私募股权机构的青睐，同时也被视为运营工业服务企业的专家。亚当曾担任通用电气的高管，毕业于加州大学洛杉矶分校安德森商学院高管培训项目，同时还拥有飞行员执照，并是美国陆军退伍军人。他已婚，是父亲，现居住在加利福尼亚州的约尔巴琳达市。您可以在LinkedIn上找到他，网址是www.linkedin.com/in/adamecoffey。

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《The Private Equity Playbook》读书笔记

《The Private Equity Playbook》

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Introduction

1. The Field

2. The Rules

3. The Players

Part Two: Finding the Right Team

4. Evaluating Private Equity Firms

5. Equity Structure, Shareholder Agreement, and Employee Contracts

6. Generating Wealth

7. The Early Days

8. Welcome to the Big Leagues

9. EBITDA: It’s a Different Ball Game

10. Organic Growth

11. Margin Expansion

12. Buy and Build

13. The Role of Consultants

Conclusion

About the Author

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