M&A Fraud at Vista Equity Partners

Edwin Dorsey, the author of The Bear Cave newsletter, talks about Vista Equity Partners, one of the biggest Private Equity funds in the country. After Robert Smith’s conviction of tax evasion, which was one of the largest in IRS history, Edwin found a variety of misdealings. Vista had prided itself on never having a losing company as a controlling shareholder. After some digging, Edwin found that Vista had been using its portfolio companies as its own personal piggy bank by buying other portfolio companies at non-economic valuations to enhance superficial optics.