Forbes is no longer the capitalist tool

TheDeal.com executive editor Yvette Kantrow is amused that Forbes magazine seems to have a problem with the money that two private equity firms will make in their deal to take retailer Neiman Marcus public.

Kantrow wrote, “Is it just us? Or does the fact that the self-proclaimed ‘Capitalist Tool’ has a problem with buyout guys racking up big gains on what’s turning out to be a well-timed investment sound, well, strange? Forbes’ main beef with TPG and Warburg is that they didn’t really earn their profits at Neiman; heck, they weren’t even ‘clever.’ The story’s snide kicker says it all: ‘Why work for a living’?

“That question seems doubly weird coming in an article that appears in Forbes’ annual investment guide — a special issue dedicated to helping readers make money by buying stocks, bonds, or whatever else it deems to be hot, but not by, say, running a business. (Ironically enough, PE firms’ business development companies earned a shout-out this year.) In other words, why work when you can invest?

“‘That Forbes, owned in part by hardworking buyout guys, Elevation Partners, doesn’t view what private equity commonly does as legitimate ‘work’ is an interesting commentary on where PE ranks on the media popularity scale these days. Far be it for us to carry water for the PE crowd, but is it fair to characterize what it does as essentially ‘nonwork’? After all, TPG and Warburg put substantial money at risk in Neiman Marcus — theirs and their limited partners’, which we’re pretty sure took at least some effort to raise.”

Read more here.