Here’s a fun example of what passes for holiday cheer in the leveraged buyout industry.  The editors and reporters at Private Equity Online, an online high finance rag sheet, sent out their very own Christmas rhyme to their email subscribers.  In this quaint little yuletide yarn, a private equity partner spontaneously decides to spread holiday cheer to his inferiors at the office by sharing the profits of his latest deal – after the “cleaning lady” finds evidence of insider trading and uses it to blackmail the firm!  Ho! Ho! Ho!  God bless us, every one!

But might some of the industry’s tycoons, like Stephen Schwarzman and Henry Kravis, take PEO’s holiday parable to heart and hoard just a little less of our country’s wealth, spreading it out to little old cleaning ladies all over the land?  Ho! Ho! Ho!....No! No! No! That’s why it’s called a parable, silly!  The real world doesn’t work like that, and the sooner you goddamned socialist tax-and-spend liberals learn it, the better for all of us.  And anyhow, if the private equity tycoons start throwing their money away on foolish indulgences like the U.S. government’s fiscal solvency or job security and living wages for workers at the companies they control, there will just be less to trickle down on the working poor in years to come!  Don’t you liberals get that?  Read a goddamned book!  Effing Economics 101 already!

But enough talk of the Communists and their agenda to destroy America – it’s Christmastime!  Happy holidays!  Enjoy your Alternative Minimum Tax break – buy something nice for your family!  You’ve earned it!  And share this holiday greeting from Private Equity Online with your adoring children:

The Night Before Christmas (at a Private Equity Firm With Founder Economics)

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the firm
The founder was selling a stake, it was learned.

Associates grumbled: "How can it be?
The boss makes a mint, but what's in it for me?"

Vice presidents murmured with worry and dread,
While visions of spin-outs spun round in their heads.

The founder, alas, had sold a minority
To an oil-rich country's investment authority

And thereby be primed for a big IPO.
Would ownership of this man's firm expand? No.

"He'll pocket the proceeds - the sum of all fears,"
Said a partner who'd worked there for seventeen years.

"This doesn't surprise me," a VP confided.
"This firm's economics are friggin' lopsided."

And oh, what a payday this founder would see
With his huge AUM and diverse list of fees.

He'd been quite content - didn't want for a thing
'Till the wise guys of Blackstone went public last Spring.

More rapid than eagles his envy did rise
So the founder set out to secure his own prize.

To Washington, Oregon, CalPERS, Nomura
Through China, and all of its nomenklatura.

Then out in the Emirates, his luck made him holler:
"Now dash away with all my fine petrodollars!"

But back at the firm, all the deal pros were stressin'
But no one dared mention the topic, "Succession."

Then suddenly someone said: "This is so shady."
They all turned in shock - 'twas the firm's cleaning lady!

She spoke not a word about underpaid taxes
But held in her hand some old, discarded faxes.

She said: "I can prove that your big LBO
Was won in cahoots with the old CEO."

The deal guys were frightened. They cried, "This is scary!"
They shook like a silent-mode bowl of BlackBerries.

The founder walked in and became histrionic,
Begging: "What do you want?" And she said: "Economics."

"I want a small piece of this thing you call carry."
"How much do you want it?" the founder asked. "Very."

The deal guys felt bolder, and they said: "So do we!
And we want to eventually own the GP!"

"Whether treated as income or capital gains,
We want an alignment of interests and pains!"

The founder agreed to share most of his loot,
The cleaner and deal guys shared hugs and a hoot.

The founder, now joyous, exclaimed through his tears:
"Carried interest to all, and to all a good year!"

 -Private Equity Online