Koch Industries has acquired Georgia-Pacific, maker of Dixie Cups, among other consumer products, to make Koch the country’s largest private company in terms of sales.
The NYT quotes G-P’s ceo, A.D. Correll, on one motivation for the sale: "There have been many nights where I have gone home and had a drink and said, 'Wouldn't it be fun to be a private company?' " Mr. Correll said, adding that the company's executives often have to focus on "more and more regulations that have been piled on" public companies instead of managing the business.
For more on the effects of Sarbox in particular in causing firms to go private, see my paper, Sarbanes-Oxley after Three Years (recently posted final draft).
Update: Alan Murray minimizes the implications of the GP transaction in today's W$J. Steve Bainbridge responds with the bigger picture, generously quoting from the above article.
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