How is he "riding for PE firms"? The writing was on the wall for Toys R Us (in the US at least) long before they went private. It had been surpassed by WalMart, speciality stores like GameStop were increasingly stealing valuable segments, the company's online presence failed, and online competition from Amazon and other retailers was just getting started. Meanwhile physical Toys R Us stores were the exact opposite of "comfortable" or "welcoming" - think Staples for toys. Nothing is impossible but their survival was really only feasible with a "burn it all down and start over again" strategy, not just small tweaks to the legacy Toys R Us model.

> I'm not sure why you're riding for the predatory PE firms, here.

from my original post: "even though I agree with you that PE sucks."

if you're missing basic points like that, no wonder you're confused.