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Article: From open season to open sesame: private equity firms have realised that self-imposed glasnost today could prevent further censure and tighter regulation tomorrow. Danielle Cohen analyses an industry with a big public relations job on its hands.(ethics)
- Article from:
- Financial Management (UK)
- Article date:
- September 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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If the term "business ethics" is, as some people believe, an oxymoron, then ethics and private equity are perhaps even less likely bedfellows. Certainly, recent reports in the national media would have us believe so, citing the buy-out houses' fondness for cutting jobs and exploiting tax loopholes as evidence of their lack of integrity. With the cornerstone of ethics--accountability--also considered to be conspicuously absent from the industry's dealings, does the private equity boom herald a return to corporate opacity?
No one seems quite sure what to expect from the big-name companies that have been acquired by private equity and whose operations have ...