(Charlotte, NC – November 7, 2017)
With 38% of US PE-owned companies held for five years or more, many portfolio companies are either on the market or likely will be soon
Source: PitchBook, The Wall Street Journal
*As of 9/30/2017
What We’re Reading
Below are links to recent articles we found interesting (no partnerships expressed or implied).
5 Things Every Aspiring CEO Should Know, From the Coach Who Advised Disney’s Bob Iger
(Fortune) Fortune talks to Marc Feigen, a “CEO Whisperer” for dozens of A-list bosses, about what boards today are looking for in a chief executive. His advice? CEOs should be insiders, have technology know-how, manage the board, understand investor relations, and be willing to seek counsel.
The Case for Trash-Talking at Work, According to Research
(Harvard Business Review) Ever since Thermopylae, leaders have been able to rally the troops by trash-talking the competition. Now researchers from Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have been able to quantify the effort. They find that trash-talking creates advantages for both the giver and the receiver. “Targets of trash-talking worked harder and accomplished far more,” say researchers Jeremy Lin and Maurice E. Schweitzer. At the same time the researchers discovered that while 52% of test subjects facing a neutral competitor were able to exhibit divergent thinking, only 37% facing off against a trash talker could do so.
(The New Yorker) A Stanford University graduate applies his engineering-degree smarts to run massive food relief efforts, becoming the personification of American innovative know-how and riding that reputation to the White House. Four years later, the economy is in shambles. Herbert Hoover “set out to govern in the manner in which he had accomplished the spectacular feats that had brought him to the Presidency: as an administrator of genius,” Nicholas Lemann writes. But his engineering outlook proved to be his political downfall the longer the Depression grinded on. Sometimes it takes a politician.
Americans Want Jobs, Not Low-Paying Hourly “Work”
(Slate.com) With the U.S. unemployment rate at a low 4.4% and America adding jobs for a record 83 months, the economy is too strong for employers to be offering seasonal work at $14 per hour. This trend continues to drive employers to seek workers beyond U.S. borders, a strategy that may be in danger in today’s political environment.