Leadership Risk: A Guide for Private Equity and Strategic Investors

ISBN-13: 9780470032640 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 256 str.

David Cooper

Opis

This book is a practical guide for private equity investors. It sets out a framework for understanding, assessing and managing the risks associated with senior management during the due diligence process of an acquisition. This provides an essential input into the wider due diligence review and a sound basis for managing the investment after the deal has been done so as to maximise the chances of a successful exit. The book comes at a time of significant growth in the field of private equity. In the UK over 3 million people (around 18% of all private sector employees) now work for private equity backed companies. It is estimated that European funds currently have somewhere between #200 and #300 billion to invest over the next few years. In the US, the whole issue of private equity due diligence is much more advanced but it is still likely that due diligence will remain a significant issue for private equity investors for the foreseeable future.

Spis treści

Introduction.

1 The Landscape of Leadership Risk.

2 Overview of the leadership risk MAPPING framework.

3 Planning and Preparation.

4 Deciding what to Assess at an Individual Level.

5 Conducting Assessments at an Individual Level.

6 What to Assess at Team Level.

7 Assessing at a Team Level.

8 What to Assess at an Organisational Level.

9 Conducting Assessment at an Organisational Level.

10 The Review Phase.

11 The Address Phase.

12 Third Party Service Providers and Their Approaches.

O autorze

David Cooper is a specialist in the assessment and development of senior executives and supports investors in managing leadership risk. For the first eleven years of his career he worked in the risk advisory group at Arthur Andersen. He then completed a Masters degree in Organisational Psychology at the London School of Economics, where he began to develop the concept of ′leadership risk′. He went on to become one of the few Chartered Accountants to qualify as a Chartered Psychologist and founded Cooper Limon, a professional advisory business specialising in management due diligence and portfolio review for Private Equity and Strategic investors. Through Cooper Limon and in his role as head of executive assessment at Praesta Partners, an international coaching firm, he has assessed and coached several hundred senior executives and advised some of the world s leading Private Equity funds. He continues his research into leadership risk and has spoken internationally at both Accounting and Psychology conferences.
David can be contacted at david.cooper@cooperlimon.com

Blurb

"David Cooper′s excellent book shows how management teams can be assessed thoroughly and systematically, and gives concrete examples of tools and approaches to help the process. Perhaps his most valuable insight is that understanding how a new management team is likely to work together is just as important as understanding the prior achievements of the individual managers. I recommend this book to all those involved in buying or investing in companies."
Adrian Beecroft, Co–founder Apax Partners

"Private equity returns are highly driven by ensuring that a portfolio company′s management team are individually and collectively equipped to deliver the investment thesis. David provides a robust framework for evaluating this, right from the start of a new deal."
Alan Roux, Executive Director, The Blackstone Group

"David′s experience of business through his extensive accounting career gives him a unique capability in the field of management assessment and support. This comes through strongly in this excellent book."
John Swarbrick, Senior Director, LDC

Private equity and strategic investors have long recognised that leadership is a decisive factor in the performance of portfolio businesses. Recent turbulence in the world of finance has changed the landscape in which such investors operate, making value creation more difficult than ever and increasing the significance of leadership even further.

This book is built around the idea that, rather than assessing leadership, investors should focus more on leadership risk. From this perspective, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the management team represents just one element of a broader and more sophisticated process of identifying and mapping the risks associated with the leadership of the investee company and raising awareness of what will create or destroy value on the route to exit.

This book will enable you to:

• Identify and manage key leadership risks throughout the lifecycle of the investment from pre–deal management due diligence through to exit
• Build a clear picture of leadership strengths and weakness on an individual, team and organisational level
• Establish clear development agendas which will maximise the chances of business success
• Frame leadership within the wider risk landscape to build a rich picture of portfolio businesses
• Approach leadership assessment and development in a constructive way, which will enhance the relationship between investor and investee.