婴儿潮一代正成批退休，私募股权基金正在等候。一代婴儿潮一代步入退休年龄，开始将他们的机械车间、管道公司和牙科诊所出售给私募股权基金。
Baby Boomers Are Retiring in Droves. Private Equity Is Waiting.
一笔笔交易下来，所有权正从建立这些企业的数千个社区，转移到资本早已高度集中的寥寥几座城市。对新主人而言，与社区的主要且往往唯一联系，就是能从收购来的资产中榨取多少利润。若任由发展，这场历史性的迁移将导致一种新的不平等地理格局。
A generation of baby boomers, aging into retirement, are starting to sell their machine shops, plumbing companies and dentistry practices to private equity firms. Deal by deal, ownership is being extracted from the thousands of communities where businesses were built to the handful of cities where capital is already concentrated. For the new owners, the primary, and often exclusive, connection to the community is the profit they can derive from the acquired asset.
婴儿潮一代企业主大规模退休，正在加速这一转变。这场“白发海啸”的规模难以完全估量。美国超过一半的小企业主年龄在55岁以上。这些公司每年创造6.5万亿美元的营收。而许多企业主并没有继任计划。
Left unchecked, this historic migration will lead to a new geography of inequality. The mass retirement of baby boomer business owners is helping accelerate this shift. The scale of this “silver tsunami” is difficult to fully appreciate. More than half of America’s small businesses have owners over the age of 55. These companies earn $6.5 trillion in revenue each year.
私募股权基金过去主要以杠杆收购大型企业著称，如今正抓住这一机遇。套路很简单：以相对便宜的价格买下市中心的一家牙科诊所，将其与全国其他牙科诊所合并，再以溢价出售合并后实体的控制权。2024年，私募股权基金完成了1500多笔低于2500万美元的收购，较过去十年增长逾40%。
And many of their owners do not have a succession plan. Private equity firms, once primarily known for leveraged buyouts of large corporations, are seizing this opportunity. The formula is straightforward: Buy a downtown dentist practice for a relative bargain, merge it with a collection of other dental practices across the country and sell control of the agglomeration for a premium.
基金正在整合众多利基行业。总部位于旧金山、管理资产185亿美元的私募股权基金Alpine Investors于2019年创立Apex Service Partners，专门收购并整合独立的暖通空调、管道和电气公司。如今，它在46个州拥有约75个本地品牌。车库门维修和屋顶业务也在发生同样的整合。
In 2024, private equity firms had completed over 1,500 acquisitions under $25 million, an over 40 percent increase over the last decade. Firms are now consolidating numerous niche industries. Alpine Investors, an $18.5 billion private equity firm based in San Francisco, founded Apex Service Partners in 2019 for the purpose of buying and consolidating ownership of independent HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies. Now it owns around 75 local brands in 46 states.
这种所有权转移的现象正在我居住的密歇根州以北、马基诺岛上演。这是一个以蜿蜒海岸线、软糖和禁行汽车而闻名的小社区。
The same is happening in garage door repair and roofing businesses. This migration of ownership is playing out north of where I live in Michigan, on Mackinac Island, a small community known for its sweeping coastline, fudge and lack of cars.
几十年来，成千上万的游客通过三条商业渡轮航线抵达该岛。2016年，第三条航线被现有的两条航线之一收购。随后在2022年，总部位于佛罗里达州的私募股权和投资公司霍夫曼家族企业收购了剩余两条渡轮航线中的一条。这是一家家族企业。“他们保持一切不变，包括名字——从游客角度来看，实际上没有任何变化，”渡轮公司总裁克里斯·谢普勒在出售时年仅59岁，他对《底特律自由报》表示。
For decades, thousands of visitors reached its shores via three commercial ferry services. In 2016, the third route was acquired by one of the two existing lines. Then in 2022, Hoffmann Family of Companies, a Florida-based private equity and investment firm, purchased one of the two remaining ferry services. It was a family business. “They’re keeping everything the same, including the name — nothing really is going to change from the guest perspective,” the ferry president, Chris Shepler, 59 at the time of the sale, told The Detroit Free Press.
随后，霍夫曼又收购了另一条渡轮航线，以及私人包船服务和私人码头，从而获得了前往该岛交通的近乎垄断地位。到2024年，该公司还拥有当地两家报纸，以及116多块土地、51栋建筑和6500个停车位，成为马基诺地区最大的房地产所有者。
Hoffmann later bought the other ferry service, as well as the private boat charter service and the private dock, giving it a near monopoly on transport to the island. By 2024, the firm also owned two area newspapers as well as more than 116 parcels of land, 51 buildings and 6,500 parking spaces, making it the largest real-estate owner in the Mackinac region.
变化随即发生。票价上涨。渡轮乘客必须额外付费才能携带自行车上船；停车费上涨。结果引发了一场“战争”，马基诺岛政府将霍夫曼告上了法庭。当地旅游局局长表示，为应对纠纷带来的负面舆论，额外花费了15.5万美元用于广告宣传。一位度假村老板利兹·韦尔表示，有意预订其场地举办会议的团体开始询问，他们是否仍能抵达该岛。密歇根州站在岛政府一边，授予其监管涉及渡轮通达的所有经济要素的权力。结果，霍夫曼威胁要在2027年停止运营。
Changes quickly ensued. Ticket prices rose. Ferry users had to start paying extra to bring on a bike; parking fees increased. The result was war, with the Mackinac Island government taking Hoffmann to court. The local tourism director reported spending $155,000 in additional advertising to counter the negative press generated by the dispute. A resort owner, Liz Ware, said groups interested in booking her place for meetings started to ask whether they would still be able to reach the island. Michigan sided with the island government, granting it authority to regulate the economics of all elements involving ferry access. As a result, Hoffmann has threatened to stop operations in 2027.
这种情况正在全国各地发生，随着更多婴儿潮一代退休并将公司出售给私募股权，情况只会变得更糟。
Situations like this are happening all over the country, and it’s only going to get worse as more baby boomers retire and sell their companies to private equity.
如果我们无动于衷，私募股权与“白发海啸”（指人口老龄化浪潮）的交汇将导致拥有并掌控自身服务的社区与不具备这些条件的社区之间的差距进一步扩大。一些社区——纽约、迈阿密、旧金山——将获得更多的所有权、财富和权力。而像麦基诺岛这样的社区，则会被抽干控制权、上行空间和公民影响力。为了让美国人能在自己的经济未来中拥有发言权，他们必须将保护本地所有权确立为国家优先事项。
If we do nothing, the confluence of private equity and the silver tsunami will create an even wider gap between communities that own and control their services and those that do not. Some communities — New York, Miami, San Francisco — will gain more ownership, more wealth and more power. Others, like Mackinac Island, are drained of control, upside and civic influence. For Americans to have a say in their economic futures, they must make protecting local ownership a national priority.
非营利组织可以提供帮助，但它们无法单独解决由市场造成的问题。我们需要资本家——投资者和企业家——愿意构建将基于地域的所有权视为优势的投资模式。我协助创立了一只投资基金，支持有志于收购并扩大西密歇根州企业的创业者。我们的运营使命要求旗下企业不仅要盈利，还要造福其所在社区。凭借1.5亿美元的投资资本，我们的公司只是一个相对较小的参与者，但这是一个开始。
Nonprofits can help, but they cannot, by themselves, solve a problem created by the market. We need capitalists — investors and entrepreneurs — willing to build investment models that treat place-based ownership as an advantage. I helped found an investment fund that backs aspiring business owners who want to acquire and expand West Michigan businesses. We operate with a mandate that our businesses should not only be profitable, but also benefit their communities. With $150 million in investment capital, our firm is a relatively small player, but it is a start.
地方政府已经在帮助社区吸引雇主、支持扩张和鼓励新业务形成方面发挥作用。但它可以做得更多，通过帮助老龄化的企业主寻找本地继任者，以及鼓励将所有权留在社区内的投资。经济发展官员应当了解哪些行业和企业对当地经济最为关键，以及在继任危机降临前需要联系哪些人。
Local government already helps communities attract employers, support expansions and encourage new business formation. But it can do more, by helping aging business owners find local successors and encouraging investments that keep ownership in communities. Economic development officials should know which sectors and firms are most important to the local economy and who needs to be connected before a succession crisis arrives.
高等教育也能提供帮助。高校长期以来培训学生为公司工作或创办公司。它们还应为学生从事最终收购并领导现有企业的职业做准备。所有权不仅仅是硅谷初创企业的故事。它也可以是一条路径，用于保护那些维系当地经济的企业。
Higher education can also help. Colleges have long trained students to work for companies or start them. They should also prepare students for careers in which they ultimately acquire and lead existing businesses. Ownership is not only a Silicon Valley start-up story. It can also be a path to preserving the companies that hold a local economy together.
最后，我们需要一种既推崇管理者也推崇创始人的文化。美国颂扬成功的创始人，却忘记了许多备受赞誉的商业人物并非从一开始就在那里。雷·克罗克收购了麦当劳。霍华德·舒尔茨收购了星巴克。史蒂夫·乔布斯收购了后来成为皮克斯的公司。
Finally, we need a culture that lionizes the steward as much as the founder. America celebrates successful founders but forgets that many celebrated business figures were not there from the start. Ray Kroc bought McDonald’s. Howard Schultz bought Starbucks. Steve Jobs bought the outfit that became Pixar.
长期以来，美国将本地企业所有权视为私人事务。但当数百万所有者同时面临退出时，私人决策便演变成了一场全国性的清算。问题在于，美国是将重振本地赋权的文化，还是任由经济控制权继续集中在早已掌握它的地方。
For a long time, America has treated local business ownership as a private matter. But when millions of owners reach the exit at the same time, private decisions become a national reckoning. The question is whether America will renew a culture of local empowerment or let economic control keep concentrating in the places that already have it.
道格·勒皮斯托是西密歇根大学教授，也是Sleeping Giant Capital的创始人。
Doug Lepisto is a professor at Western Michigan University and a founder of Sleeping Giant Capital.