Private Equity: Eclipse of the Public Corporation or Symptom of Systemic Problem?

The private equity sector has experienced explosive growth, with assets under management quadrupling over the past decade to exceed $8 trillion. While institutional investors continue to increase their private equity allocations–prompting Bloomberg to observe that “Pension Funds are Hooked on Private Equity: No Matter the Risks”– concerns have emerged about private equity’s impact on organizational stakeholders, portfolio companies, and broader society. As public corporations in the US have declined by half since 1996, while private equity-backed firms have increased six-fold in the past two decades (JPMorgan, 2023), a crucial question emerges: Does this shift herald: (i) an improvement in corporate governance, business productivity, social responsibility and investor returns; or (ii) does it signal deeper systemic issues that transcend public markets?

Jeff Hooke was a Senior Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School from 2016 to 2024, and he continues to teach courses on a part-time basis. He is a broad-based finance and investment executive with global experience throughout the U.S., Europe and the emerging markets of Latin America and Asia.  He was a Managing Director of Focus Securities, an M&A-oriented boutique investment bank, prior to joining Carey. Earlier, Hooke focused on emerging market investment and private equity.  He was a director at the Emerging Markets Partnership, a $5 billion private equity group. Earlier, he was a Principal Investment Officer of the International Finance Corporation, the $30 billion private sector division of the World Bank.
Jeff Hooke began his career as an investment officer in the private placement department of Metropolitan Life Insurance. His New York investment banking career covered two major firms: Lehman Brothers and Schroder Wertheim. Mr. Hooke has an MBA from the Wharton School and a BS degree (cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored many publications and five books, including M&A: A Practical Guide to Doing the Deal, Security Analysis and Business Valuation on Wall Street, and The Myth of Private Equity.

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Sponsored by: M&I Center for Business Ethics