The Operator's Decade

For forty years, private equity earned its returns on the cleverness of the deal. That era is quietly ending, and what it leaves behind is a game only operators know how to win.

This issue shows how the old money games of private equity, cheap debt, rising valuations and buy and build, have all weakened at once, so returns now depend on plain operational improvement. It sets out the disciplines the best owners now rely on, and how any operator can borrow them without taking a penny of outside capital.

• Why a deal that once needed 5% annual profit growth now needs 10 to 12% (Bain).
• The two levers that carried private equity for a decade, and why both have closed at once.
• Four operating disciplines you can borrow this quarter, without taking on debt or a sponsor.