No longer, Forstmann believed, did buyout firms buy companies to work side-by-side with management, grow their businesses, and sell out in five to seven years, as Forstmann Little did. All that mattered now was keeping up a steady flow of transactions that produced an even steadier flow of fees—management fees for the buyout firms, advisory fees for the investment banks, junk-bond fees for the bond specialists. As far as Ted Forstmann was concerned, the entire LBO industry had become the province of quick-buck artists.
