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Comment by mbesto | Hacker News Reader

> Every time I’ve seen a company bought by private equity, it spells the beginning of the end.

I regularly work with PE firms.

You can't paint the whole industry with one brush stroke. I've seen more than a handful of companies get bought by PE to become very successful for everyone involved (PE, management, customers)...and the opposite.

That being said - it's very common to see companies in the large cap space ($5B~$10B in enterprise value) to be repositioned to match the market dynamics or financially engineered. While you might have had a poor experience, the rest of the market may have been willing to wait in 15 minute lines for $10 bottles of water.

If you disagree with PE, the easiest way to "stick it to them" is to vote with your wallet. Simply stop going to Sea World and you'll see PE change their tune pretty quickly.

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> While you might have had a poor experience, the rest of the market may have been willing to wait in 15 minute lines for $10 bottles of water. If you disagree with PE, the easiest way to "stick it to them" is to vote with your wallet. Simply stop going to Sea World and you'll see PE change their tune pretty quickly.

Ironically this is exactly the sort of attitude that the parent is complaining about. You could never grow a business with this mindset, but you can coast and cannibalize one just fine. Nobody likes 15 min lines or $10 water bottles; they tolerate them because there are other experiences that are worthwhile along the way. You remove these experiences and you are basically just screwing people who are going off outdated information about the quality of the experience. Voting with dollars is fine but there is a big information asymmetry and a hysteresis effect of having a quality brand reputation (built over years of not trying to screw people). Any voting with dollars is years removed from the results.

Why? I've never been to SeaWorld, and it's really easy for me to look up up-to-date reviews before I plan a trip. Easier than ever, in fact.

The hysteresis effect you mention requires that people would stupid when spending their own dollars.

> Nobody likes 15 min lines or $10 water bottles; they tolerate them because there are other experiences that are worthwhile along the way. You remove these experiences and you are basically just screwing people who are going off outdated information about the quality of the experience.

Perhaps other people just have different preferences from you and make different trade-offs?

> Ironically this is exactly the sort of attitude that the parent is complaining about.

And this attitude would exist regardless of whether PE is involved. When you get the $1B+ market cap size, these entities are not benevolent entities - they are profit seeking machines.

> the rest of the market may have been willing to wait in 15 minute lines for $10 bottles of water

Yep, I can definitely believe you've worked with PE firms.

In respect to Sea World the more realistic strategy is either run at a minor loss until the real estate is profitable or squeeze dry ASAP and sell. Or the timeless play of load it with debt, payout themselves and declare bankruptcy.

Of course there are other PE businesses that are ran with only minor changes. I have a friend whose firm invests in dermatology offices and has created a network of small offices nation wide. From my understanding they really do try to keep the same staff on and mostly do back office changes but that’s his word so take it for what it is. I personally find large scale PE work pretty soulless but there are definitely firms that care about the companies they take over.

> Or the timeless play of load it with debt, payout themselves and declare bankruptcy.

Well, as long as they sell the bonds only to consenting adults, what's wrong with that?

"consenting adults"

By that did you mean "the Fed"?

No, I did not mean the Fed. Why?

The Fed mostly buys government debt, don't they? Have they recently taken to buying private equity debt?

They started buying them during the pandemic but, looking into it in more detail, it looks like it was only a few tens of billions, so not that much.

This model is not good for society as a whole.

What do you mean?

Some people prefer riskier investments. Let them have it.

Other people prefer safer investments, let them have what they want, too.

There's nothing inherently sacred about bonds. It's just a contract that basically says 'either we pay you x dollars on time, or you get to take ownership of the company'.

The issue is that a company purchased by PE often has built up a positive image of their brand. Sea World probably has thousands of positive reviews online; by the time the online consensus catches up to the reality of the experience, it's very easy to be fooled. That's where the money is made: when costs are cut but the brand still has a positive perception.

PE doesn't have to change their tune; by the time consumers realize that the product has changed, the firm has already made their money.

Any business can do this regardless of whether PE is involved. What's your point?

The difference is incentive structure. Running a business successfully is hard, and getting one to profitability is difficult. The easiest way to make money on a purchased business is to cut costs while people perceive it positively, ride that wave until the business isn't perceived positively, then sell the remaining assets. This method, given that it happens frequently, seems to be the easiest and most reliable way to turn a profit from a business over a period of 3-7 years, with no regard for the survival of that business moving forward.

Given that PE is generally looking for profits over the 3-7 year time period, this would line up with their goals.

Other businesses could absolutely have the same incentives. We see similar acquisitions from Google, Facebook, etc. where products are absorbed into the parent company or otherwise shut down. However, there's a larger chance that the purchasing business has incentives that align with the company being purchased. An established and trusted brand is incredibly valuable; many parent companies would be content to let that business thrive as a semi-autonomous business unit.

Would you argue that PE is less or more likely to employ the strategy I've outlined in my original comment? My prior would be that PE is more likely to use that strategy than other businesses.

As always, I'm open to my views being changed on that. Clearly not all PE deals involve stripping a company down, and plenty of other businesses would be happy to strip a company down. As someone with more experience with PE, I'd be interested in your views and why you have different priors than me.

> This method, given that it happens frequently, seems to be the easiest and most reliable way to turn a profit

I think you're naively looking at the headlines of PE that focus on large cap buyouts. For every story about Toys R' Us, there are hundreds of PE buyouts that do no cost cutting and use PE capital to grow their businesses.

As I noted earlier, the big PE funds - Apollo, KKR, etc. - are notorious for stripping away large healthy brands and financially engineering them to leave them loaded up with debt. I can certainly appreciate why people think the whole industry is like this. For the record - not only do not I have access to these funds, I would politely decline working with them if I had the chance (we actually said no to biz with one of the big firms years ago). They easiest PE route is in fact investing in healthy businesses with good management teams and then selling them in 3~5 years when multiples naturally go up. The less work that is required to turn the business around the easier it is on the PE fund. Financial engineering and cost cutting is just a cheap trick that can only be used in certain situations.

There is a HUGE market of mid market PE firms that survive on growing both top line and earnings as a result of growth orientated initiatives, and don't leave the company hanging with swathes of debt. In fact, there is a category called Growth PE which has invested in many of the tech companies we discussed here. Look up Insight Venture Partners, TCV, Tiger Global, etc.

Happy to elaborate further if you're interested.

That makes perfect sense! I'll look into those firms, thank you.

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