Corporate Jets Often First Thing to Go After Leveraged Buyouts

Note to chief executive officers weighing that leveraged-buyout offer: You may have to give up the corporate jet.

Companies bought by private-equity firms are 32 percent less likely to have a jet in the three years after the deal closes than in the year before, according to a paper written by the Federal Reserve Board’s Jesse Edgerton. The study, published Jan. 21, found that jet fleets at LBO-backed companies are at least 40 percent smaller than at similar publicly traded firms.