The Routledge Companion to Management Buyouts

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BUYOUTS FROM FAILURE

Louise Scholes

Introduction

In times of recession there is always an increase in the number company bankruptcies (insolvencies) and therefore an accompanying increase in the number of management buyouts and management buyins¹ from these failed companies. Most buyouts from insolvency are purchases of parts of failed groups rather than attempts to rescue whole firms (Robbie et al., 1993; Scholes & Wright, 2009). A good example of this is the buyout of Denby from Coloroll. The parent company Coloroll ran into financial difficulties and was forced to sell Denby (see Case 2). The over-expansion of companies with debt-financed acquisitions when times are good is often the reason that these companies go into insolvency when ...