The ploy was a classic financial engineering tactic of the pre-financial crisis private equity boom in which hundreds of deals were financed by selling off the assets of the companies that had been acquired. The returns were generally used to quickly pay down debt or to fund large dividend payouts to investors.Just 18 months after the firm had snatched the car parks giant from under the nose of rival venture capitalist Apax Partners, Cinven subjected the business to an aggressive sale-and-leaseback deal in ...