The decade of the 1980s is perhaps more closely associated with the leveraged buyout than any decade before or since. For the first time, the public became aware of the ability of private equity to affect mainstream companies and "corporate raiders" and "hostile takeovers" entered the public consciousness. The decade would see one of the largest booms in private equity culminating in the 1989 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, which would reign as the largest leveraged buyout transaction for nearly 17 years. In 1980, the private equity industry would raise approximately $2.4 billion of annual investor commitments and by the end of the decade in 1989 that figure stood at $21.9 billion marking the tremendous growth experienced.Source: Thomson Financial's VentureXpert database for Commitments. Searching "All Private Equity Funds" (Venture Capital, Buyout and Mezzanine).
