Takeover!, page-6

I see it completely differently. I think what's happened is you have a founder/CEO who wants to grow the company and has realised that the market is completely myopic, not willing to invest for the long term and is now heavily undervaluing the company.

Private Equity will take a longer term investment view than the skittish market, which totally capitulated based on not very much. They will make out like bandits when they relist it in a few years yes, but who's fault is that?

This isn't the first time this has happened - founder CEOs are very much invested in their companies, much more so than a typical CEO, and you need to appreciate the psychology of that.

For example the Flight Centre CEO/founder partnered with Pacific Equity Partners in 2007 to take FLT private when the stock market had crushed the share price. That deal didn't happen but the thesis was the same.