Book Review: Venture Capital and Private Equity a Casebook

I just finished two books on Venture Capital and Private Equity. The first one is Buyout: The Insider’s Guide to Buying Your Own Company and the second one is Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook

So,

• Buyout: The Insider’s Guide to Buying Your Own Company

This was an interesting book, written by a long-time practitioner in the private equity industry. It was an easy read and provided some good, in-the-trenches stories and tips.

• Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook

This one was also very interesting to read. It contains several cases that highlight the VC and PE industry. It’s quite theoretical, and not as practical as Buyout : The Insider’s Guide to Buying Your Own Company but it’s still interesting and definitely a very good reference book. Here is the book’s description on Amazon:

Book Description: Over the past twenty years, the private equity industry has undergone tremendous growth and sweeping changes. With the growth of private equity investing, it is imperative that financial professionals fully understand this complex subject. The cases and notes in this updated edition are designed to provide you with a better understanding of the history of the private equity industry’s development and the workings of the industry today. Divided into four modules, the first examines how private equity funds are raised and structured; the second considers the interactions between private equity investors and the entrepreneurs that they finance; the third discusses the process through which private equity investors exit their investments; and the last considers the future of the private equity industry.

From the Back Cover: Why have private equity funds experienced such tremendous cycles of boom and bust? How have these funds created so much value? Can we expect this kind of growth in other countries and other types of investments? These are just a few of the exciting and important questions you’ll explore in this new and updated collection of real-world venture capital and private equity cases. Now thoroughly revised to reflect the new realities in today’s venture capital and private equity markets, Lerner, Hardymon, and Leamon’s Third Edition addresses such timely issues as troubled portfolio companies, markedly smaller funds, and ongoing attempts to address the problematic practices of the late 1990s. The cases take you through each step in the venture capital/private equity process, including:

• Raising and structuring private equity funds
• Investing in, monitoring of, and adding value to companies
• Exiting investments and returning capital to the private equity group’s investors
• Adapting the private equity model in other settings, such as corporate and community development venture funds

About the Authors: Josh Lerner, the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at the Harvard Business School, is one of the best-known authorities on venture capital. Both his academic and practical activities focus on the structure and workings of these funds. His mix of practical and academic perspectives is at the heart of this book. Felda Hardymon is a Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School and a partner since 1981 at Bessemer Venture Partners, a leading venture capital firm. Ann Leamon, after co-founding the Center for Case Development at Harvard Business School, now serves as Senior Research Associate dedicated to the Venture Capital & Private Equity class. She came to Harvard after a decade of senior analytical positions in operating companies.

I recommend both of these books for your reference library, if you’re an entrepreneur or an aspiring buyout person, or are just interested in business.