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private equity fund

(FINANCE) business entity formed to pool money provided by investors in order to buy majority stakes in existing companies. A common practice is to then "take the company private," so that it no longer has shares trading on the stock market. The company is then restructured, so that it has entirely different management practices, or a different business strategy. Afterward, the PE fund will most likely re-sell the company on the stock market in a sponsored IPO.

Private equity funds are usually limited liability partnerships (LLPs), which gives them special privileges of nondisclosure; most are organized in the State of Delaware. PEF's have sponsors, or "principals," who are responsible for organizing the fund and recruiting other investors.

Among the best-known PE funds are Blackstone Group*, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR)*, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners*, Carlyle Group, Permira, Apollo Management, Providence Equity, TPG Capital, Warburg Pincus, and Cerberus. Companies marked with an asterisk (*) are publically listed corporations; most PE funds are pivately managed. The selection above includes the largest ones by capital under management.
The private equity fund first appeared in the 1970's as a result of changes to ERISA. Institutional investors, usually pension funds, could be legal partners in an LLP; they also required a place to park assets with very high rates of return.

In the USA, PE funds have long been sinecures for the most powerful political dynasties: the Rockefellers, the Romneys, the Bushes, and others.
by Abu Yahya September 1, 2010
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foreign factor income

in economics, the net income from assets that are owned by foreigners. The citizens of a country will own assets that are physically located overseas (for example, real estate in another country, shares of foreign stock, or even labor performed while an expatriate), and those assets earn income. At the same time, foreigners likewise earn income on assets located in ones' own country.

If domestically-owned assets located abroad earn more income than domestic assets owned by foreigners, then there will be a net flow of income from overseas. This is a collateral benefit to running a trade surplus, especially over several years.

An example might be the United Kingdom (UK) during the 19th century. Prior to the 1880's, the UK exported far more than it imported. With the foreign money, it bought assets in the economies of other countries, such as the USA, Continental Europe, and the future Commonwealth of Nations. These assets naturally earned a lot of income, as they accumulated over many decades. The income from these assets was so large that, after the 1880's, the UK ran a trade deficit but still had a current account surplus.


In the case of the UK, the current account surplus from the NFFI was still large enough that the UK could continue to buy foreign assets that earned income, even as its trade deficit grew during the early 20th century.
Gross national product (GNP) is gross domstic product (GDP) minus net foreign factor income (NFFI).
by Abu Yahya February 14, 2009
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curmudgeon's fallacy

The idea that, if you mitigate the consequences of a particular type of accident, then that type of accident will necessarily occur much more frequently, more than negating the initial benefit.

The CF assumes that human nature is perverse and seeks to equalize consequences. Hence, improved automotive technologies such as air bags, ABS, space frames, etc. will be offset (or more than offset) by careless driving, leading to increased highway fatalities.

FALSIFICATION: Empirical evidence shows that, while reducing consequences increases risky behavior, overall safety/health outcomes are better. Insurance companies with a stake in reducing claims verify this.

More generally, the CF confuses all forms of risk-taking, such as faster highway speeds, with fecklessness. Increased speed and convenience (for motorists) has utility; and there is no principle in welfare economics that says risk-taking will increase by an amount sufficient to offset the safety measures.
The massively overrated book *Freakanomics* (Dubner & Leavitt) includes many examples of the curmudgeon's fallacy.
by Abu Yahya October 16, 2008
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(ECONOMICS) the administrative committee of the Federal Reserve System that actually administers monetary policy. There are 12 members of the FOMC.

The 12 members include all seven governors of the Federal Reserve Board (FRB).

In addition, representatives of each Federal Reserve Bank are eligible to serve on the FOMC. The FOMC implements sales/purchases of treasury securities (open market operations) in order to create credit at member banks. This is the process by which banks with FRS membership can create money. The difficulty of open market operations lies in ensuring that rates for short term securities remain lower than those for long term securities. Otherwise, monetary tightening cannot succeed in curbing inflation.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2nd FRB) is by far the most important of the 12 district banks. Historically, its president has often gone on to become either chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, or else Secretary of the Treasury (as, for example, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner). Nearly all bank holding companies have subsidiaries in the 2nd District, and the 2nd District is uniquely guaranteed a seat on the FOMC. The other 11 rotate, with 4 taking a turn of the FOMC at any given time.
The Federal Open Market Committee conducts transactions in treasury securities at the Open Market Window.
by Abu Yahya May 5, 2010
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monetize

to introduce a thing as currency, e.g., silver, gold, copper. In nearly all cases, when something has been monetized, it is legal tender and debtors are legally obligated to accept it as payment for debt.

Debt can also be monetized. A government can either buy the debt of companies whose growth it favors as a matter of policy (as in pre-War Japan) or permit its own bonds to be be used as banking reserves (for the creation of money).
In 1878 Congress passed the Bland Bill, which monetized silver at a ratio of 16:1 to gold.
by Abu Yahya January 23, 2009
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sovereign debt

(ECONOMICS) debt owned by a national government to all creditors foreign and domestic. Backed by the national government's power to tax.
Even after the International Monetary Fund worked out a bailout for Greece, other sovereign debt crises could still arise in Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
by Abu Yahya May 5, 2010
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closely held

(BUSINESS) a closely-held corporation has all or most of its stock owned by the management of the firm. In many cases, it has no stock at all (see "going public"), in which case it is a private company.

Usually people say "private corporation" to mean any company that is unaffiliated with the government, or any company run mainly for profit. It's impossible to buck this trend, so corporations with no issues of stock, or negligible amounts of stock held by the public, are called "private companies" despite the fact that not all companies are corporations. Cargill, Inc., for example, has annual revenues of $117 billion, but no shares available for trade. On the other hand, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young are private companies but not a corporations. They are limited liability partnerships. The term "closely held" would not apply to them since partnerships do not issue stock.
Koch Industries is a super-sized, closely held corporation with two owners--Charles and David Koch, heirs to the oil refiner Fred Koch. Thanks to this peculiar status, magazines like Forbes are not allowed to report ANY financial statistics of the company at all (sales figures are suspiciously rounded to "$100,000,000,000.00").

Publix Super Markets (at the other end of the spectrum) is closely held--by its 125,000 employees.
by Abu Yahya September 3, 2010
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