The Ethics of the Complete Management Buyout Cycle: A Multi-Perspective Analysis

Management buyouts occur when incumbent managers (typically in association with third party investors) purchase all of a firm's outstanding stock and remove it from public trading. Prior ethical analyses of such activities have ignored the fact that large numbers of such buyouts return to public trading. The ethical implications of management buyout activity can be more fully understood if the entire buyout process is considered, beginning with the time the firm is taken private until it is returned to public trading. Using a widely employed strategic management ethical framework developed by Hosmer (1994), this paper examines the ethics of the complete buyout cycle.