This was a public company (or some sort of weird in between, in this case). This matches my experience with my local public companies - contrary to private corporate environment which is definitely not good, but much preferable.
Edit: to be more clear, as in contrary to “private, corporate” mentioned above.
Hence why one refers to work in the private sector, which could mean a privately-owned or publicly-traded company, but not something government-owned/operated.
For example British Broadcasting Corporation.
The point was that I think there is value in distinguishing public companies and private companies because it's completely different from employee's and career viewpoint.