At overinflated values I'm sure. I guess this is what happens when interest rates are low and all the good companies have been bought up.
Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
321–330 of 362 posts
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#322A friend of mine is a Vet at a place recently sold to a PE firm. If your wait times are crazy long, if you can't get through on a phone, if you realize your vet's office has parted ways with the great vet you used to see -- that's the PE firm counting beans and destroying the service for customers in an effort to squeeze every dollar out of the system. As a specific obviously bad example -- Vet services in California…
The article talks to that and how business now advertise in caps "NOT PRIVATE EQUITY OWNED." Surely that's an easy antitrust win to point out, it's gotta be causing significant consumer harm to be labelled so boldly as a selling point!
Good luck getting around what extremely well paid lobbyist will do.
This country sadly has been corrupted by money.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#323I am getting into M&A, which is what PE do, and I don't even need to read the article to know it's bs. In essence, the PE firm's goal is to consolidate multiple companies, make them work as efficiently as possible, by sharing resources and utilize the best processes, and then either operate them for increased profit or sell them off for good multiples of earnings, because they have added value to it, so someone else…
>> "There is nothing bad with any of this." My experience has been that once a small business is snatched up by a firm, customer service goes out the window and the focus on efficiency leads to a marked decline in overall quality. I'm sure it's all gravy for the people making money though.
If decline in service goes up, the people at the top most definitely feel it. It is actually multiplied by the fact that it is consolidated. So it is exponential.
The problem with ->bigBut even big PE firms can be good managers. So again, it is circumstantial and not something that can be generalized.
There are always bad apples. But those apples, once they make their bad name, they will go out of business sooner or later because other people will know of them and to avoid them.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where am I supposed to put all the groceries? They have to stay on the scale, but the scale is very small.
they make these things called bags. but hey stranger, i appreciate you and everyone like you - i can't remember the last time i waited in a checkout line because i'm in and out of self checkout in like 2 minutes even at peak hours. it's amazing. i've also noticed that even the parking lot is less crowded at stores with self checkout. i'm sure someone has simulated this extensively because i can see it with my own eye…
> they make these things called bags
I think the point here is that if you're the sort of person who does a weekly shop for a family, you can't possibly fit all of your bags on the scale, even at the largest self-checkout kiosks.
FWIW, I think your self-checkout experience is probably uncommon. I find that the barcode scanners at self-checkout machines are often poorly-calibrated, dirty, or just generally a pain in the ass. I say this as someone who spent five years doing tech support on point-of-sale equipment, where my job was quite literally to help people use their finicky barcode scanners.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
> aggravating (e.g., self-checkout lanes... self-checkout lanes are not viewed as a bad thing by many. Given the option of a self checkout or staffed checked, I'd choose self checkout. The negative aspect of self-checkout is that it's usually paired with the store being understaffed, instead of redirecting the freed up staff to other roles.
Where am I supposed to put all the groceries? They have to stay on the scale, but the scale is very small.
In my local Aldi the scales are enormous - you can definitely fit a full trolley full of groceries on the scales. A local Tescos has two kinds - one set of self checkouts with small scales for people with baskets only, and one with huge scales for people with trolleys. They look like this, you can fit everything on it:
https://ninanco.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/4a-blurred-11...
In other words - this is a solved problem.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
they make these things called bags. but hey stranger, i appreciate you and everyone like you - i can't remember the last time i waited in a checkout line because i'm in and out of self checkout in like 2 minutes even at peak hours. it's amazing. i've also noticed that even the parking lot is less crowded at stores with self checkout. i'm sure someone has simulated this extensively because i can see it with my own eye…
> they make these things called bags I think the point here is that if you're the sort of person who does a weekly shop for a family, you can't possibly fit all of your bags on the scale, even at the largest self-checkout kiosks. FWIW, I think your self-checkout experience is probably uncommon. I find that the barcode scanners at self-checkout machines are often poorly-calibrated, dirty, or just generally a pain in t…
These are the checkout scales at my local supermarkets - I do a huge shop once a week for the entire family and I never struggled to fit everything on it:
https://ninanco.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/4a-blurred-11...
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#327It's interesting reading all of the stories of PE firms destroy businesses. I've had those experiences, but I've also had the opposite experience. I used to work for a regional internet service provider/cable/phone company that was owned by PE. They poured a ton of resources into the business, improved our processes and standardized things so that we could expand to more regions. Then they sold us for a nice chunk of…
For a PE buyout to be truly successful, the current owners need to be vastly less informed and/or have access to fewer resources than the fund does. It's a function of both sides of the transaction.
When a PE doesn't think they could get a truly good deal, they are incentivized to flip quickly, potentially at the cost of the long term health of the business.
What this seems to imply is that many "middling" deals are the ones that are going to go sour - ones that worked fine before but where the PE could not figure out how to get it to grow faster. In those cases, the rational choice for a profit-maximizing PE is to use whatever tactics at their disposable to exploit it to the last cent and move on to the next project, as opposed to leaving the business alone.
More money has been going into PE, and businesses consolidate more. Good targets are harder to find, and more incompetent PE managers are coming to the market. What I feel this predicts is that the average experience with PE should decline over time.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Instapot was going into a crapper PE or no PE.
That's a pretty low-effort take. I'm a very serious cook and I absolutely loathe kitchen gadget culture but the Instant Pot has to be the most innovative kitchen tool created in my lifetime. It's a mobile oven, pressure cooker, saute pan, and mess-free food transport system all in one and it's affordable. The amount of food it can produce relative to the active cook time needed is unparalleled. It's the gateway drug…
It’s going into the crapper because there are so many instapots you can sell.
The company sold them and then revenues went into the toilet.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what makes you think that?
I don't think elderly care nurses need to euthanise their patients just because the family can no longer afford the treatment. There's a TED talk on just how shitty being a veterinarian is. https://www.ted.com/talks/melanie_bowden_dvm_what_being_a_ve...
And vets don't have to sit there day after day watching a husband or wife sit lovingly next to their partner who can't remember them, or worse hurls abuse at them, or can't speak, etc. Or a dying person that their family can't be bothered visiting, etc.
They can both be immensely horrible and also immensely rewarding jobs, it's not a competition.
Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates
#330I have seen this happen over and over. This is the issue that should be front and center for elections but public doesn't know what is going on. Recently PE firm bought out the building which had oldest and only rock climbing gym. PE firm refused to renew their lease and forced to shut it down. The entire community of rock climbers basically died overnight. Lots of children growing up and learning this sport would no…
While you've clearly explained how this is bad, how is this not a free market? >an economic system based on supply and demand with little or no government control
There are an enormous amount of laws governing private equity. Clearly there is a lot of government control involved in the industry. Government actions basically makes PE possible in the first place.