Larry Ribstein, private partnerships have been used as alternatives to solving sticky problems of corporate management
University of Illinois law professor Larry Ribstein has been a pioneer in the study of how private partnerships have been used as alternatives to solving sticky problems of corporate management.
Much of his work has centered on the problem of aligning managers' and owners' interests. He notes that the private partnership model popular in the private equity world might be very useful for Goldman here.
It seems far more likely that Goldman would borrow a page from private equity firms, going private with debt financing that requires registration under securities laws and carries with it stringent reporting requirements. Sarbanes-Oxley is often presented as the bane of corporate executives but for Lehman, its accounting demands could play the vital role of assuring counter-parties that Goldman was safe to do business with even without the oversight of public shareholders.
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