Public hospice agencies would come with their own set of constraints that enable different kinds of bad behavior; I don't exactly trust Jacobin to dispassionately judge whether those are better than a well-regulated private industry could be.
1) Normal business: how can we innovate such that we maximise profit off the back of a decent product.
2) Private equity: how can buy this company with as much debt in its own name while extracting as much resource as we can via dividends.
What you’re talking about is LBOs (leveraged buyouts) which are a certain kind of private equity investment.
Private equity firms still try to please their shareholders, they’re just not beholden to a public stock price.
You’re correct about the definition.
And, no, lbos are the buyer borrowing a lot to buy another company, while using the assets of the acquisition as collateral. The debt is still in the buyer’s name AFAIK (may be wrong)
How does it solve that problem?
On average, an investment from purchase to exit may take ~5 years.
Whereas a public company with large institutional owners will have to respond to market feedback in real-time, i.e they are more likely to follow the herd if institutions (pension funds) demand a shift in industry trends (ie ESG). Whereas, private equity have no such concerns.
I won’t comment on regulation being a solution to anything market related.