Private equity, or capital investment funds, have the distinction of being invested in companies not publicly traded on the stock market. Their activities often remain mysterious, although they have become major players in finance. This work answers the questions raised by private equity without ignoring the controversies stirred by its practices.
Nicolas Bédu is a lecturer in economic sciences at the University of Artois and a researcher with Lille Economics and Management, a mixed-research unit of the National Center for Scientific Research (LEM, UMR CNRS 9221). His work focuses on enterprise finance through capital investment funds, transformations of financial systems in Europe, and the introduction of financial technologies (FinTech).
Sociologist Fabien Foureault is an associate researcher at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations (Sciences Po) and the Swiss Elite Observatory (University of Lausanne). His work focuses on financialization, economic élites, and organizational fields. He is the author of Le Capital en action (Capital in Action; Presses des mines, 2019).
Jean-Étienne Palard holds an agrégation in economics and management and lectures in finance at IAE Bordeaux, where he runs the Master’s 2 in Financial Engineering and Corporate Finance. A researcher at the Institute for Research on Organizational Management (IRGO), he focuses on how private equity funds work, leveraged buy-outs, and more generally, models for evaluating privately held companies. He is the author of Guide pratique d’évaluation d’entreprise (A Practical Guide to Evaluating Companies; Eyrolles, 2014) and the manual Finance d’entreprise (Enterprise Finance; Vuibert, 2019).