* * * * *
                                        
                   The vultures that are private equity firms
                                        
Adam Conover's video on private equity firms [1] was interesting, but I would
have liked a better explanation of how they make money from bankrupting the
firms they buy (aside from the fees they apparently charge for their
“services”). I would think that would be rather counter-productive over the
longer term.

And yes, I have some experience with private equity firms. When I worked at
The Corporation, we were initially bought out by a larger company (but were
left along for years for … um … reasons), then that company was bought out by
a private equity firm. It was then when we sold off access to some critical
databases we used to a competitor and leased the data back from them, which
I'm sure this bought in a ton of money for the private equity firm itself
directly. Indirectly, it most likely shifted expenses around for tax
advantages for the next few years (like shifting capital expenses to
operating expenses or something like that—I'm not an accountant though) until
our contract with our competitor expired in a few years and it would become
Somebody Else's Problem to deal with (I think the hope of the private equity
firm was that they would no longer own us by then). We also suffered hiring
freezes because we “never had enough money to hire anyone” (odd, that,
because we made millions per month from our customer, the Oligarchic Cell
Phone Company).

Eventually, we did become Someone Else's Problem when we were sold to a much
larger firm (which I don't think had any influence on the large push for
Enterprise Agile—that's entirely the fault of the original company that
bought out the Corporation), so at the very least, we avoided the “bankruptcy
outcome.” But I can't say it was a pleasant experience at the time though.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5PLEZiSZVw

Email author at sean@conman.org

.