When private equity meets HR

Private Equity (PE) funds are amongst the most important investors in takeovers and carve-outs, particularly given the relative weakness of the European banking sector and the challenges of financing of large- and midsize companies in a world of rising interest rates.

Traditionally, some unions and labour activists have had concerns about the operations of private equity investors (even deriding them as ‘locusts’), but some recent very significant company rescues would have been inconceivable without PE financing and both PE and HR have started to develop ways of working together in the interests of increasing the human capital buried deeply within the assets.

Ius Laboris Global HR Lawyers, the world’s largest network of employment lawyers, has recently developed two key training programmes: one to help PE funds meet HR challenges both before and after a transaction and when preparing their exit; and the other to help HR managers deal with a situation in which there is a PE shareholder.