The Lucrative World of Management Buyouts: Europe is the next frontier

Funds galore for LBO prospects | Tax snags of a global buyout | Some examples of recent MBOs | UK buyouts grow in complexity | Managers who succeed as bosses | Spawn of an era: specialist firms | Warnings fail to dim LBO dazzle

Management buyouts are much less common in continental Europe than they are in the UK or the US. There are several reasons for this, although they differ from country to country. In broad terms, there is little tradition of share ownership by managers in the companies for which they work; unfavourable tax regulations often make it difficult to secure funding for buyouts, and the absence of an active secondary stock market in most countries means that there is no visible exit route for investors.