Treisman demonstrates that the Loans for Shares program had a comparable effect on companies' performance and governance as Russian voucher privatization.

Treisman confirms that the transfer of important companies to the hands of oligarchs was the biggest problem of this form of privatization.

Many of the original claims on how much the new owners underpaid were significantly exaggerated; they did not take into account the significant risk premia (esp. for external participants).

Treisman shows that the "sale" of companies to oligarchs was not necessarily the biggest problem; he attempts to draw attention to the other type of results, the role of incumbent Soviet-era managers.