"What Public Companies Can Learn from Private Equity" (.pdf from The Boston Consulting Group)

This article does a nice job of explaining the advantages of private equity and the importance of "getting managers to act like owners."

“Private equity firms have a laserlike focus on creating value within a three-to-five year timeframe. Managers of public companies often criticize this time frame as “too short term.” And yet it is far longer than the time frame one finds at many public companies, where management is prisoner to next quarter’s results.”

"A Boston Consulting Group benchmarking study found that managers at companies bought by private equity have the equivalent of as much as one to two years of salary invested in the business – and receive 8 to 12 times the amount invested upon exit."