Stop Anthos from Taking over CrossFit

[Nathan Holmes]

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

Wait, you agree with the article??? The following quotes directly contradict your 2nd point about how I was in error.

Not true. Please read the entire article, especially the next two paragraphs after the first you quoted.

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

How are companies improving performance and adding debt while being PASSIVE investors?

By definition they can't, and nobody said or implied that they do.

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

Like I said, my 5X number may very well be wrong

You are correct that your number is wrong.

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

[...] my points about how PI companies do business relative to changing business models seem to be accurate.

For the most part, not true.

Also, I understand that you are using the abbreviation PI to refer to Private Equity firms, but what specifically does the 'P' and 'I' stand for?

[Randy Hill]

Originally Posted by Nathan Holmes

If anyone decides to try both, be careful which order you do them in.

Hey, i've been to Portsmouth! Those aren't WOMEN at those bars in VA beach!

[Chris Mason]

Originally Posted by Nathan Holmes

Not true. Please read the entire article, especially the next two paragraphs after the first you quoted.



By definition they can't, and nobody said or implied that they do.



You are correct that your number is wrong.


For the most part, not true.

Also, I understand that you are using the abbreviation PI to refer to Private Equity firms, but what specifically does the 'P' and 'I' stand for?

The last part is me being tired... Just stupid.

[Chris Mason]

Nathan, you stated that the majority of private equity firms are passive investors. That article totally and completely refutes that. If you don't think it does then I think you are allowing ego or bias to blind you.

[Doug Lowry]

If private equity firms are the devil, then put a positive spin on Coach soliciting other private equity firms to fund his buyout proposal for his wife's stake.

Let the explanations begin.

I was contemplating asking that question myself...whether private equity financing has Lauren's or Greg's name attached to it, an investment that substantial will include some semblance of oversight and decision making approval authority.

[Joe Mercurio]

Originally Posted by Bob Cieszkowski

Well if Anthos operates anything like Bain you should be very concerned (if you care at all about the continued existence of CrossFit).

As usual Taibbi does a great job of laying things out: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...quity-20120829 (wfs)

Could have fooled me

"But another way is getting Dunkin' to take out a $1.25 billion bank loan to hand its investors $500 million in tribute payments."

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread. Taking out debt to make a dividend payment is not quite as sinister as it sounds. As long as the value of the firm stays the same, a dividend payment is exactly offset by a capital loss (V=D+E). This makes sense because who would want to buy the stock back from these guys when the firm is clearly unable to make it's debt payments? It 's possible that the firm simply wanted to change the capital structure of the firm which isn't unreasonable if you assume the company was mismanaged enough to attract a PE firm and that J Graham finds that a typical tax-paying corporation would add 7.5% to firm value by levering up to a not too unreasonable debt ratio. (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=002...3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y) LINK WFS.

Those are all hypotheticals, I don't know the details, but the point is that neither do you. This kind of unsubstantiated hysteria driven attacks on Anthos just makes the community look bad regardless of what side of the fence you're on.

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

The tax deductibility of interest payments on debt gives private-equity executives an incentive to pile extra debt onto the companies they buy, thereby risking the health of these firms for the sake of a tax benefit and the prospect of higher returns."

This doesn't make sense either. It's been claimed PE firms are raiding corporate treasure chests for dividend payments financed through corporate debt for the sake of a tax benefit? It's the opposite way around. Dividend payments are taxed at a higher rate than interest payments on debt because the interest isn't taxed at the corporate level. And since the Private Equity guys aren't the ones holding onto the corporate debt, they're not getting the so-called tax benefit. It's also false that the addition of debt is disastrous to a firm. Of course theres a point at which the marginal cost of debt exceeds the marginal benefit, but the PE firm has to sell their stock at some point. If they're making a significant profit then clearly they haven't run the firm into the ground at that point.

[Chris Mason]

Joe, what you quoted me on was a quote from an article I referenced. The point of my referencing it, and which you evidently missed, is that the other fellow was trying to say PE firms are PASSIVE investors. If they restructure debt etc. they are hardly being passive. That statement by him flies in the face of everything I have heard or read about PE firms.

My main point before we got involved in accounting minutiae is that a company like Anthos, unless they were the true freak exception, and unless Mr. Glassman et. al lied about their talk with them, WOULD change the CrossFit model and in MY OPINION that cannot be a good thing for the affiliates as the current model is heavily biased to the affiliates making money.

Thank you.

[Nathan Holmes]

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

Nathan, you stated that the majority of private equity firms are passive investors.

Not true, Todd did. I merely pointed out that your statements and question were flawed.

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

That article totally and completely refutes that.

I'll let Todd address that.

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

If you don't think it does then I think you are allowing ego or bias to blind you.

Matthew 7:3

[Daniela Jantzen]

Originally Posted by Joe Mercurio

.....This kind of unsubstantiated hysteria driven attacks on Anthos just makes the community look bad regardless of what side of the fence you're on.

Amen to that.