Vocabulary:

to plunge	резко снижаться (о курсе валют)
floating exchange-rate-system	система плавающих валютных курсов
to adjust exchange-rates	корректировать, изменять валютные курсы
flexible	гибкий, способный изменяться (о валютном курсе)
robust	зд. устойчивый
pegged rates	«привязанные» курсы, т.е. привязка курса валюты к какому-либо ориентиру (например, другой валюте)
managed exchange-rate-system	система управляемых валютных курсов
«fundamental disequilibrium»	валютный курс при отсутствии «фундаментального равновесия»
target parities	намеченный паритет валют
derivatives	производные финансовые инструменты (фьючерсы, опционы и т.д.)
debt-interest costs	расходы, связанные с погашением и обслуживанием долга
targeting	таргетирование, т.е. установление ориентиров (роста)
band (s)	предел(ы) колебаний валютных курсов
margin	зд. разница между курсами валют
to realign (central rates)	пересмотреть (центральные курсы валют)
to be tested	зд. приближаться к предельному уровню (о валютном курсе)

Text E

1. Translate the text.

2. Make an annotation on the text. The uneasy crown

The buy-out business is booming, but capitalism's new kings are attracting growing criticism

HEROD was not the monarch this newspaper had in mind when in 2004 it proclaimed the leaders of the private-equity industry the “new kings of capitalism”. It was Louis XIV perhaps—the sort of ruler whose kingdom grew rapidly in size, power and reputation, just as private-equity firms have done.

Last year the value of private-equity buy-outs, usually by taking private a company which is trading on a public stock market, surged to $440 billion in America and Europe. Ever bigger companies are being gobbled up. On February 7th Blackstone Group won a bidding war for Equity Office Properties, setting a new high of $39 billion, including debt, for a private-equity acquisition.

Few firms seem beyond the industry's grasp. J. Sainsbury, a British supermarket chain, is among the latest targets. The grapevine buzzes with talk of others, including Dell and even IBM. Such is the fuss that some boosters extrapolate the rise of private equity even to the death of the public-listed corporation, which they argue has become obsolete.

Yet when a group of tycoons gathered in London in January for the Private Equity Foundation, a new charity for children, a trade union picketing the launch said it was “like Herod becoming a patron” of Britain's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Sharp criticism has become a daily nuisance for the private-equity industry. Its leaders, such as Steve Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group, David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group and Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake Partners, were treated like royalty at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. But having to debate “Is bigger better in private equity?” and then listen to Philip Jennings, general secretary of UNI Global Union, tell them they “should no longer consider themselves untouchable” took the edge off their acclaim.

They can be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu. Until recently, private equity seemed to have shed its bad-boy image of 20 years ago, summed up in “Barbarians at the Gate”, a bestselling book about the battle by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) to buy RJR Nabisco. But from barbarians to Herod in two decades hardly seems like progress.

The 1980s boom in private-equity deals—then known as leveraged buy-outs (LBOs)—came to an abrupt and messy halt. The buy-out firms found they had over-paid for some acquisitions, credit markets dried up, some of the important providers of finance (such as Michael Milken, the “junk-bond king”) ended up in jail and regulators cracked down on their beloved hostile takeover bids.

Nobody expects to see a repeat of that reverse, even though some criticisms are eerily familiar. Unions complain that buy-out firms are asset-strippers: the London protest was against the axing of jobs by Birds Eye, a food company owned by Permira, the biggest European private-equity firm.

Regulators, too, are growing agitated. Last year Britain's Financial Services Authority concluded after an inquiry that at least some of the industry's activities will end in tears. America's Department of Justice is investigating whether the increasingly common bidding consortia, in which several private-equity firms club together, are in breach of antitrust laws.

Shareholders of targeted companies are also starting to smell a rat. They suspect that top managers, who usually remain in charge when their business passes into private hands, are selling too cheaply in order to get a bigger slice of the profits for themselves when the private-equity buyer eventually sells the firm on. Recent attempts to take ClearChannel and Cablevision private met fierce opposition from shareholders feeling short-changed.