People in favor of private equity will say that the firms serve a crucial function, making troubled businesses more robust and efficient. “Roughly one in five large companies acquired through leveraged buyouts go bankrupt in a decade,” he writes. By 2017, after years of layoffs, crushing debt and being charged regular management fees by the private equity firms “for the privilege to be owned by them,” Ballou writes, Toys “R” Us was bankrupt. Private equity firms have acquired nursing homes, provided staffing for hospitals and services for prisons. And, of course, the cost-cutting measures typically imposed on acquired companies often include slashed wages and abandoned pension obligations.

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Persons: Ballou, ”, ” Ballou, Morgenson, Rosner, David Rubenstein, HCR, we’re, ” Rubenstein Organizations: KKR, Bain, Vornado Realty Trust, Carlyle Group, ” Industries