Private Equity: These are the Plunderers

[Orko]

Besides maybe nuclear war, this should be the most important political issue.

ADHD Version 2 min 10 sec straight to the heart of the scam.

15 min 05 sec Trump made these changes near the end of the first term
Sooner or later these guys are going to come for Druff's 7 star perks, if they haven't already.


Speaking of nuclear war, not that anybody cares. Documents have been leaked
that describe Russia's policy on the use of nuclear weapons.
https://www.tiktok.com/@trunewsoffic...64725834386734

Factoid: The woman who prosecuted SBF (the one who dropped all the campaign finance related charges) is married
to a big shot from Apollo Management, one of the most ruthless PE firms. Not that there's anything wrong w that,
I just thought it was amusing.

[OK2]

okay but don't ever use this faggot to make a point again ork

[Orko]

This private equity shit is more sinister than can imagine. The way the media gives them cover is evil.
Anytime you see some store closing you can bet they got fucked by private equity. What they do should not be legal but it is
because dumb fuck republicans think allowing sleazballs to bribe our elected reps is free speech.
We are fucked folks.

Check out how the media covers up for those sleazeballs in private equity.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/busin...nts/index.html

New York
CNN
—
Struggling Red Lobster is abruptly closing at least 48 of its restaurants around the country, according to a leading restaurant liquidator.

TAGeX Brands is conducting an online auction of Red Lobster kitchen equipment, furniture and other contents at restaurants closing. The auction begins Monday and continues through Thursday, according to company founder Neal Sherman.

Red Lobster is reportedly considering filing for bankruptcy protection. The chain has tapped a restructuring expert as its chief executive, a possible indicator of an impending bankruptcy.

Red Lobster was a restaurant industry pioneer, but has declined in recent years due to a range of factors, including corporate mismanagement, say former leaders at the chain and restaurant analysts.

In 2020, Thai Union, a longtime supplier to Red Lobster, took an undisclosed financial stake in the chain, becoming a key shareholder. Since then, Red Lobster has cycled through four CEOs and an all-you-can-eat shrimp deal last year that slowed down table service and cut into Thai Union’s profitability.

Thai Union said earlier this year it would divest from Red Lobster and take a $530 million loss on its investment."
Sounds like business was slow and everyone took a loss. that's it.
No they got plundered hardcore.

If you google red lobster private equity you get the real story.
The fishy death of Red Lobster
Endless Shrimp didn't sink the seafood chain. Wall Street did.
ith the chain on the verge of bankruptcy, it has become abundantly clear that Red Lobster letting customers eat all the shrimp their hearts desire was not a great business idea. It's also not the reason the restaurant is in a deep financial mess.

In mid-April, Bloomberg reported the debt-laden seafood chain and home of beloved cheddar biscuits was considering filing for Chapter
11 bankruptcy protection. Red Lobster is being bogged down by increased labor costs and expensive leases on its restaurants. Some observers were quick to blame the financial woes on its decision last year to make its "Endless Shrimp" promotion, which used to be an occasional, limited-time offering, permanent. The move was not a smart one. While Red Lobster increased traffic somewhat, people coming in to chow down on all-you-can-eat shrimp was a money bleeder. The company blamed Endless Shrimp for its $11 million losses in the third quarter of 2023, and in the fourth quarter, the picture got even worse, with the restaurant chain seeing $12.5 million in operating losses.

But the story about what's gone wrong with Red Lobster is much more complicated than a bunch of stoners pigging out on shrimp (and, later, lobster) en masse. The brand has been plagued by various problems — waning customer interest, constant leadership turnover, and, as has become a common tale, private equity's meddling in the business.

https://www.businessinsider.com/red-...-estate-2024-5

Private equity completely destroyed a chicago area grocer, closed for good, stiffed a bunch of people that counted on them.

That's minor league

[Orko]

Companies bought by private equity firms are far more likely to go bankrupt than companies that aren’t. Over the last decade, private equity firms were responsible for nearly 600,000 job losses in the retail sector alone. In nursing homes, where the firms have been particularly active, private equity ownership is responsible for an estimated — and astounding — 20,000 premature deaths over a 12-year period, according to a recent working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Similar tales of woe abound in mobile homes, prison health care, emergency medicine, ambulances, apartment buildings and elsewhere. Yet private equity and its leaders continue to prosper, and executives of the top firms are billionaires many times over.

Why do private equity firms succeed when the companies they buy so often fail? In part, it’s because firms are generally insulated from the consequences of their actions, and benefit from hard-fought tax benefits that allow many of their executives to often pay lower rates than you and I do. Together, this means that firms enjoy disproportionate benefits when their plans succeed, and suffer fewer consequences when they fail.
\
Look at this crap, it shouldn't be legal.
Consider the case of the Carlyle Group and the nursing home chain HCR ManorCare. In 2007, Carlyle — a private equity firm now with $373 billion in assets under management — bought HCR ManorCare for a little over $6 billion, most of which was borrowed money that ManorCare, not Carlyle, would have to pay back. As the new owner, Carlyle sold nearly all of ManorCare’s real estate and quickly recovered its initial investment. This meant, however, that ManorCare was forced to pay nearly half a billion dollars a year in rent to occupy buildings it once owned. Carlyle also extracted over $80 million in transaction and advisory fees from the company it had just bought, draining ManorCare of money.

ManorCare soon instituted various cost-cutting programs and laid off hundreds of workers. Health code violations spiked. People suffered. The daughter of one resident told The Washington Post that “my mom would call us every day crying when she was in there” and that “it was dirty — like a run-down motel. Roaches and ants all over the place.”

In 2018, ManorCare filed for bankruptcy, with over $7 billion in debt[/B]. But that was, in a sense, immaterial to Carlyle, which had already recovered the money it invested and made millions more in fees. (In statements to The Washington Post, ManorCare denied that the quality of its care had declined, while Carlyle claimed that changes in how Medicare paid nursing homes, not its own actions, caused the chain’s bankruptcy.)

Carlyle managed to avoid any legal liability for its actions. How it did so explains why this industry often has such poor outcomes for the businesses it buys.

The family of one ManorCare resident, Annie Salley, sued Carlyle after she died in a facility that the family said was understaffed. According to the lawsuit, despite needing assistance walking to the bathroom, Ms. Salley was forced to do so alone, and hit her head on a bathroom fixture. Afterward, nursing home staff reportedly failed to order a head scan or refer her to a doctor, even though she exhibited confusion, vomited and thrashed around. Ms. Salley eventually died from bleeding around her brain.

Yet when Ms. Salley’s family sued for wrongful death, Carlyle managed to get the case against it dismissed. As a private equity firm, Carlyle claimed, it did not technically own ManorCare. Rather, Carlyle merely advised a series of investment funds with obscure names that did. In essence, Carlyle performed a legal disappearing act.

In this case, as in nearly every private equity acquisition, private equity firms benefit from a legal double standard: They have effective control over the companies their funds buy, but are rarely held responsible for those companies’ actions. This mismatch helps to explain why private equity firms often make such risky or shortsighted moves that imperil their own businesses. When firms, through their takeovers, load companies up with debt, extract onerous fees or cut jobs or quality of care, they face big payouts when things go well, but generally suffer no legal consequences when they go poorly. It’s a “heads I win, tails you lose” sort of arrangement — one that’s been enormously profitable.

Umfuckingbelievable and thanks to the GOP they can legally bribe lawmakers.
It's time to deport the entire GOP leadership to the land they love, israel. Don't call us, we'll call you.

[sah_24]

FED is 100x the problem ...