Private Equity-owned Companies in Times Square 

Private equity owners: Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Carlyle Group and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity

Owned by private equity: 2005-2007 (firms each retain approximately 19% of shares)

Deal value: $15 billion

Employees: 31,500 (in 2006)

Forgive your Hertz representative if she seems a little edgy, repeated “restructurings” this year have meant that nearly 2,000 of her co-workers have been given pink slips. These layoffs are just the latest in the now-legendary story of how private equity partners CD&R, Carlyle and Merrill Lynch have squeezed money out of the car rental giant in one of the buyout industry’s most famous “quick flips.” After the buyout firms mortgaged the rental fleet and took out multiple loans in order to pay dividends to themselves, it should come as little surprise that as thousands of Hertz employees are now filing for unemployment benefits. What is surprising is that the buyout firms again—for the second time this year—are offering just under $1 billion worth of their shares to put a little cash in their pockets. All those termination envelopes can get expensive.