This Issue collects the articles presented at the symposium in June 2008 organized by the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics and The University of Chicago Law Review. This topic could not be timelier, as the past several years have seen an unprecedented number of public companies being taken private through leveraged buyouts. The list includes: BellCanada ($35 billion), Alltel ($28 billion), SunGuard Data Systems ($11 billion), and Toys “R” Us ($6 billion). These deals are part of a growing trend large enough to be deemed a phenomenon worthy of study by lawyers, economists, and other serious students of American business. Although the credit crunch and financial crisis of 2008 has dampened the enthusiasm for private-equity deals, in the long haul the trend is likely to continue, as private-equity firms hold in reserve hundreds of billions of dollars in capital waiting for deployment, and the model has demonstrated significant efficiencies.

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