Private Equity Laid Bare

Private Equity Laid Bare
By Ludovic Phalippou
Published in September 2017
303 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

Private Equity Laid Bare advertises itself as a “non-boring, never complacent textbook.” While it is a textbook, I’m not sure that I can say that it is non-boring or never complacent.

I would say that this book is intermediate in terms of its difficulty level. The book focuses on explaining the technical details of private equity rather than giving a broader overview. There is a lot of discussion about hyper-specific LPAs, valuation calculations, etc…

Some case studies are given, but only to illustrate various points. When he discusses Blackrock’s LBO of Safeway, he does so to illustrate the moral hazards LBOs can cause. I wish he would have spent more time storytelling about specific real world case studies, and used those intricacies to illustrate his points; not the other way around.

The writing is quite good. I really love how Phalippou uses analogies from Alice in Wonderland. His writing style is similar to my own.

I do not recommend this book to people who want to learn the basics of private equity.

​