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  • Helping Advance the Profession of Product Design in NC

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As Buy-Out Firms Seek Larger Targets: Who Seeks The Smaller Deals?

October 30th, 2006 by Tom Vass
Economic Commentary:
Does Big Matter?
Jason Singer and Henny Sender report on an important capital market trend today in their WSJ story (“Growing Funds Fuel Buyout Boom: Already Biggest, Blackstone Pool Will Raise Additional $4.4 Billion As Firms Seek Larger Targets”). “Private-equity firms have been on a tear lately, buying up publicly traded businesses with the intention of making them more profitable — frequently by aggressively cutting costs — and then selling them for big gains, either to other companies or to public shareholders via new stock listings. Fifteen out of the top 20 buyouts on record have been announced in the past 18 months, and private-equity firms this year have accounted for 17% of all major mergers and acquisitions.”
What It Means to the US Economy.
When the supply of publicly traded companies goes down as a result of buyouts, existing public stock markets have fewer member company shares to trade. All supply and demand held constant, this would mean rising equity prices on the remaining public shares. In addition to the effect on public markets, the buyout frenzy is both affected by and in turn influences the bond and debt markets. The debt markets are extending financing to the private-equity firms at a cheaper rate and on more flexible terms, allowing the private-equity firms to offer more. Private-equity firms recently have paid as much as 20% over their acquisition’s current share price. The additional debt capital supplements the huge cache of private cash, and the increase supply, holding demand constant, tends to over inflate both the shares and the value of debt held on the asset sheets of bankers who extend the debt to buy the wildly inflated private shares.
The Big Buy Out Shell Game Will Eventually End Badly.
The combination of really big buyouts of really big public companies will end just like all other speculative frenzies: Badly. But, for whom does the Bell Toll? The giant buyout firms already eyeing takeover targets with stock-market values of $50 billion or more. What happens to the U. S. economy when the really big companies get sliced and diced by the biggest firms.
What is America’s Greatest Economic Strength?

“The Next Job Outsourced to India Could Be Yours,” writes Mark Gilbert, in Bloomberg today. And this is the really bad economic effect on the U. S. economy.

“Anyone who believes the U.S. and Europe have some kind of monopoly on intellect is cruising for a bruising,” writes Gilbert. He cites the writing of Andy Kessler on a type of polly-annish thinking about American innovation and ingenuity.

“We Think, They Sweat,” wrote Andy Kessler in an article on Asian manufacturing and the U.S. trade deficit for the Wall Street Journal two years ago. If “they” start thinking for us as well, maybe we are the ones who should be sweating.”

Well, exactly who or what entity in America does the thinking, and exactly who or what group in America does the sweating?

America’s greatest economic strength is the individual freedom to think and sweat freely.

The Really Big Buy Outs Affect American Capacity to Innovate.

As Clayton Christensen, of Harvard University, has extensively documented, most of America’s economic and technological ingenuity resides precisely in the corporations now targeted for take-overs. Does any one out there believe that the corporate raiders care a damn about the economic effect of eviscerating America’s innovative ability after they get control of the company and load it up with debt?

Who Seeks The Smaller Deals?

If America and its 50 little state cousins actually had an economic strategy, it would focus attention on the smaller deals, and make sure that they get done right. While the big firm buyouts will affect stock market prices in the near term, the future economic strength of the country resides in the ability of little firms to prosper.

Who is it in America that is seeking the prosperity of the little deals?

Posted in Economics and Technology, Regional Technology Innovation | No Comments »

The RTP-PDMA Regional Strategic Innovation Council. 1st Draft October 26, 2006 Tom Vass

October 26th, 2006 by Tom Vass

Mission: The RTP RSIC is a private membership club of consultants who share a common interest in promoting technological innovation in the RTP regional economy. The primary type of technological innovation of interest is associated with individual entrepreneurs, inventors or small engineering companies that need independent consulting experts to provide advice and guidance on product innovation and technology. Secondarily, the interest would be on technological or product spin-offs from larger corporations in the region who need a business group to hand-off the technology.

Organizational Functions:

  1. General membership conducts forums and seminars on broad regional issues:
  1. New product brainstorming on what types of new products or technology may work in the regional economy.
  2. Ideal new business ventures or business entities that may work in the regional economy.
  3. Future regional technological trajectory, technological gaps or weaknesses in the regional technological industrial cluster or supply chains.
  • Project teams for individual project consulting.
    1. 6 member teams formed to provide guidance and oversight to candidates who have passed a general membership screening process on the viability of the technology or new product.

    1. New product screening criteria by general membership are

    a. New future end use applications or technological trajectory of product idea.

    b. Financial criteria for successful venture.

    c. Linkage of idea to strengthening regional economy technological clusters.

    2. Membership for each team from consultants who are experts in management and operations of a business enterprise:

    1. Marketing, sales, distribution channels.

    2. Product design, manufacture, feasibility

    3. Innovation

    4. Finance

    5. Management

    6. Team leader

    1. Candidates are assigned to a team for a six month period. The candidate acts as the team secretary and coordinator for meetings.
    1. Takes notes and prepares minutes of each team meeting.
    2. Keeps archival records of team advice.
    3. Provides status updates and progress reports on candidate’s goals.
    4. Makes presentation to general membership at end of 6 months.

    Organizational Management of RISC

    1. Members vote on Executive Council. Executive Council elects RISC CEO to manage affairs of RISC.

    2. CEO suggests members of each project team for majority vote approval by Executive Council. Criteria of team selection adopted by Executive Council.

    3. CEO suggests standard consulting terms and conditions for consultants after 6 month period. Standardized option agreements for consultants in lieu of cash payments for consulting engagements after 6 months. Executive Council adopts by majority vote.

    4. CEO appoints general members to standing committees, each committee chaired by member of Executive Council. All general members serve on at least one standing committee.

    5. CEO suggests special committees or projects for vote by Executive Council.

    Posted in Economics and Technology, Regional Technology Innovation | No Comments »

    The Bad Politics of RTP’s Venture Capital Community

    October 24th, 2006 by Tom Vass

    Big Oil and National Political Corruption

    In his MSN Financial Column today, Senior Markets Editor Jim Jubak laments the political corruption associated with Big Oil’s contributions to members of the U. S. Congress (”Big Oil’s 10 Favorite Members of Congress.”)

    Jubak’s main point is that the public’s interest in a national energy policy is at a political disadvantage to Big Oil’s financial interest in maintaining the status quo.

    National political corruption is easy enough to understand, and most folks can see how it works, thanks to reporting by journalists like Jubak.

    Lest readers think that this type of political corruption and influence only affects national politics, today’s News and Observer highlights a similar problem right here in RTP, NC.

    Understanding How Local Corruption Works

    In the two news articles today, one highlights the legal and regulatory woes of a local high-flier biotech company. The other describes the decline in investment capital this quarter in local high tech companies.

    Because the two articles are not joined or linked in any way, it is not easy to see the connection between them, or gain a better understanding of how the local corruption works or to see the corrosive effects on the local economy.

    In the case of North Carolina corruption, a very tiny handful of powerful lobbyists have gained access to public revenues to support special private interests. The public revenues are combined with private venture capital to cushion the downside risks of private investments.

    Who Holds The Special Interests Accountable?

    In the case of the RTP biotech company, a powerful industry trade group persuaded elected officials to fork over hundreds of millions of tax dollars to support the “North Carolina Biotech” initiative.

    The supposed economic promise of biotech was then, and continues to be a pipe-dream. There is not going to be a pay-off to the public’s interest for jobs and incomes from the massive public funding of the private biotech initiative.

    But, the damage is long done, and no one in charge of protecting the public’s interest can hold the private interests accountable because all the elected leaders are on the payroll or campaign finance rolls of the biotech interests.

    What Happened to The Flow of Venture Capital?

    In the other article on the flow of venture capital investing, the reporter notes that not only is the amount of capital down, but the very same companies that got earlier investments are getting the bulk of current investments.

    This is like the poor stuffed Boa Constrictor who keeps getting stuffed. Because of politics associated with the corruption of public revenues, the VCs are locked into investing in the same smaller universe of companies.

    The new venture creation pipeline in the RTP is severely restricted to only those ventures that the political elite can benefit from. And, that pipeline ain’t growing anymore.

    In a revealing statement, one local VC was quoted as saying that they had raised a lot of capital and were looking for new investments. They can not find them here because the bad politics makes for a bad new venture environment.

    Watch Out For the Newest Round of Political Corruption.

    North Carolina is arguably the most corrupt state in the nation because the use of public dollars to support private financial interests is an accepted way of official life.

    Giving Dell Computers over $300 million in a public bribe hardly causes a ripple, and neither does giving the biotech industry hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The news that the local VCs have raised a new round of capital means that a new round of political corruption can not be far away.

    Look for the same suspects as before. Because in North Carolina, the way it works is that only the tiny handful of insiders can benefit from the corruption. And, no one is ever held accountable for the failures when things blow up or go rotten.

    Posted in Economics and Technology | No Comments »

    An Economic Problem With Real Consequences, Thomas E. Vass

    October 23rd, 2006 by Tom Vass

    Economic Commentary for October 23, 2006:
    In his stock market column today at MSN, (“Waiting game: A plunge is inevitable”), Bill
    Fleckenstein makes the case that economic euphoria is rampant. The current economic
    conditions, he suggests, are leading to a stock market plunge in the near future.
    Current Conditions vs. Long-Term Conditions
    The forces that drive the stock market in any 90 day period of time, or even on a daily
    basis, have much to do with a combination of sentiment, emotions, and extremely fast automated trading of bundles of stocks, near stocks, synthetic investments, and future baskets of goods.

    Large institutional traders wait and watch the current conditions and then bet millions of
    dollars on very slight changes in current indicators. The result of the automated trading of huge piles of capital is the Dow Jones Industrial trading near 12,000.
    The very fact that the DJIA is near 12,000 is taken as evidence that the market may even
    go higher.

    Fleckenstein is correct to urge caution. In the near-term, economic and financial
    conditions have much to do with euphoria and not much to do with long-term economic
    conditions that eventually affect stock market valuations.
    A Real Long-Term Economic Problem
    Just beyond the grassy smoke of euphoria, there is another economic fact that could cause serious long-term problems for the U. S. economy. BusinessWeek, in their lead story for October 30, 2006, described the problem, but did not explain the economic consequences.
    Their story begins: “Three weeks after giant private-equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners
    agreed to buy an 80% stake of Iowa Falls ethanol producer Hawkeye Holdings in May, Hawkeye filed registration papers with the Securities & Exchange Commission to go public. The buyout deal hadn’t even closed yet, but Thomas H. Lee was already looking forward to an initial public offering expected to generate a huge profit on its $312 million investment.”
    As they state, “Taken together, these trends serve as a warning that the private-equity
    business has entered a historic period of excess. “It feels a lot like 1999 in venture capital,” says Steven N. Kaplan, finance professor at the University of Chicago.”
    The Problem is A Wacky Private Capital Market Infrastructure
    It would be hard to sit down and dream up a private capital market framework more
    wacky than the one currently in place in America. As BusinessWeek explains, in one part of the private capital market, Private equity bankers buy firms and then load up the companies with debt after the fact to finance their big dividend and fee payments. Banks have lent companies $71 billion since 2003 to pay dividends to private-equity owners, up from $10 billion during the previous six years.
    Then, in another part of the world of private equity banking, the bankers dump their companies into the public stock markets to bail their companies out of debt. Thomson Financial estimates that 55% of the proceeds from this year’s buyout-backed IPOs were used, at least in part, to make payments to financial owners and creditors, vs. 21% of non-buyout-backed IPOs.
    When Professor Kaplan says that this looks like the late 1990’s all over again, what he means is that the really shitty private VC deals got dumped into the public markets. The VCs won huge profits and the public markets suffered. Ergo, Sarbanes-Oxley and even greater levels of wackiness.
    The Economic Consequences
    In order for America to enjoy future economic growth, investments made today must create new economic demand in 3 years. If investments made in the late 1990’s had actually been legitimate, then America would not have suffered an economic downturn, beginning in April of 2000.
    In addition, if the VCs and private equity bankers had not dumped their really shitty deals into the public market, then the stock market would not have tanked for 3 years.
    No one is in charge of correcting the private capital market infrastructure problem. Yet, the job of the private capital markets to direct investment capital to legitimate investments is crucial to America’s continuing economic strength.
    The euphoria noted by Fleckenstein will have immediate short-term consequences on the stock market. The wacky private market framework in America today will have long-term negative consequences for about 5 years, unless it is corrected.

    Posted in Economics and Technology, New Venture Creation | No Comments »

    Camping from the Viewpoint of a Product Designer

    October 18th, 2006 by Montie Roland

    Camping is an activity that transcends the standard social and economic assumptions. Camping is an extremely popular activity that attacts hundreds of thousands of participants each year. We come to see and experience locations and activities like:

    Hiking in the Appalachian Mountains
    Hiking on Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina

    Hiking on Mount Mitchell in North Carolina


    Sliding Down a Gigantic Rocks into 56 Degree Water at Sliding Rock

    The modern camping trip is a buffet of products designed to help improve the camping experience. We bring, use and make icons, and artifacts, like:

    The Venerable Coleman Camping Stove

    Everyone Loves a Campfire Followed by S’Mores


    When the Tents Leak, The Pop-Up Shelters Come Out

    PVC Helps this Camper Accommodate for Missing Product Features

    The podcast (below) discusses the camping experience and how we could redesign that experience to make camping more universally acceptable. Hopefully this exercise will give you ideas on how-to evaluate the experience associated with your products. Evaluating the experience associated with an existing product can be an excellent way to define new product experiences. These experience models lead to developing new, or derivative, products that make these new experiences possible.

    As always, your comments, and suggestions, are welcome. Please send them to me at montie@montie.com. Have a great day!

    Sincerely,
    Montie Roland

    Posted in