Yesterday, the WSJ quietly featured a seemingly unusual new tactic for dealing with shaky private equity investments, that being giving the investment stake back.  In 2007, consumer/retail focused private equity firm NRDC Equity Partners invested in fashion house Peter Som Inc. The founders of the emerging brand took a $3 million cash infusion in exchange for a 65% stake in the business.

However, given the deteriorating state of all things luxury since, NRDC decided in January to go one step further then the standard write off, and relinquished its stake back to the Peter Som founders.  NRDC no doubt wants to spend its time following larger investments more closely, making the $3 million total loss somewhat insignificant.

While this sort of exit probably won’t become too popular, I’m sure there are other more notable private equity investments where firm owners would love to do the same.