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Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

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Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#351

Post by P_I_Staker »

derbOac wrote: post #256
BeetleB wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion, the physician in this example is a monster. Profit maximization is a choice, not some kind of moral imperative. They've had a career of treating patients. I think they've satisfied the moral imperative already. And selling to PE doesn't necessarily equate to "profit maximization". It could just mean "decent sale". As the OP said, often there simply isn't anyone available to buy it out at the timeline…

> They've had a career of treating patients. I think they've satisfied the moral imperative already. No offense (really), but speaking from professional experience, I think this is naive and contributing to a lot of reasons why healthcare costs have started to spiral out of control. There are moral doctors, and immoral ones, and everything in between. I'm not really sure why healthcare provision as an economic transa…

I want to demonize doctors.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#352

Post by P_I_Staker »

legitster wrote: post #92
dwallin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there is no one else right now who would buy it." You are missing a qualifier: "at the current market price." If you prevent or disincentivize PE from buying these types of businesses, the price would drop to the level of its new adjusted demand.

Sure! But that cuts into the "keeping retiring doctors happy" piece. If your practice is worth $15 million but you only get 50c on the dollar because there is no buyer pool, you might be pretty grumpy. To the broader picture though, this is a double edged sword if you want more private family practices. Less doctors are going to go through the work and cost of starting their own business if they have to take a haircu…

They can get grumpy. Who cares? They can live with $7.5 million. I hope they will be able to recover from this crushing blow.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#353

Post by tacocataco »

anonporridge wrote: post #268
78124781 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The professor who wrote that book, interestingly, ended up being denied tenure and was subsequently unable to get another academic job despite years of trying. Here's a recent podcast with him: https://www.persuasion.community/p/deresiewicz It may not be the best thing in the world to be an "excellent sheep," but perhaps it's better than being a lone ram.

If you reject the shepherd, you have to be prepared for the brutal life of a mountain goat.

Even if you were a mountain goat, where would you go? Other people already own all the mountains.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#354

Post by CatWChainsaw »

sytelus wrote: post #316
voiper1 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is not the free market because they are privileged through their connections to acquire massive amount of cash in form of credit. The trillions of dollars available in funds from banks and retirement funds are managed by just handful of entities. You and me don't fly in our private jets to play golf with CEOs in Palm Beach. You and me don't have privileged access to these entities to get $10M loan in blink of an e…

So, "because nepotism"?

That's always been a problem and capitalism can't solve it.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#355

Post by maximinus_thrax »

motohagiography wrote: post #348
motohagiography wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's hard about reading filings that are literally public? The only barrier is english literacy, a solved problem. Crunchbase tells you any public funding rounds, and then if a PE group acquires more than something like 10% they have to make an SEC filing. (if I'm wrong about that threshold, the internet will correct me.) I should disclose that early in my career I would do job interviews recreationally on my lunch…

I wasn't happy with the tone of that on a re-read. Last few sentences are good. Happy to contribute any additional details if helpful.

Thank you for the details, stranger! I appreciate it.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#356

Post by dang »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #24
bena wrote: post #9

> When KKR buys Toys“R”Us or when Carlyle buys the nursing home chain ManorCare, the debt is held by the company that they bought That right there is what should be made illegal. Somehow. There's probably all sorts of technicalities wherein KKR didn't buy it directly, but as the majority of the board of TRU, authorized the self-purchase or something like that. But you shouldn't be able to force a company to essential…

[flagged]

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines with personal attacks and flamewar, and ignoring our request to stop. Not cool.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#357

Post by rocket_surgeron »

dang wrote: post #356
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines with personal attacks and flamewar, and ignoring our request to stop. Not cool. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

Conflict is essential to human life, whether between different aspects of oneself, between oneself and the environment, between different individuals or between different groups

LOL

Get fucked.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#358

Post by dang »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #357
dang wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines with personal attacks and flamewar, and ignoring our request to stop. Not cool. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

Conflict is essential to human life, whether between different aspects of oneself, between oneself and the environment, between different individuals or between different groups LOL Get fucked.

You forgot the rest!

the capacity to bear the tensions of doubt and of unsatisfied need and the willingness to hold judgement in suspense until finer and finer solutions can be discovered which integrate more and more the claims of both sides

(This and the parent are copying bits of a quote I have at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang, in case anyone's wondering.)

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#359

Post by evancox100 »

singleshot_ wrote: post #286
evancox100 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar General didn’t move down market, they moved up. Still plenty of regular grocery stores around, at least here. And who abandons the middle part of the market? The providers? The customers? Not really making sense here but I get it if you’re just venting or whatever.

I didn't mean that dollar stores had moved down market; I meant that dollar stores moved in, split the low end of the market out of the old "regular grocery store" and now the medium grocery buyer is left with the choice of dollar store groceries or some kind of grocery delivery service/meal kit/personal chef. If this doesn't make sense, maybe it's a metaphor. Does it seem like the normal way of doing things from 20…

No, it does not feel like that to me as far as grocery stores are concerned. (My experience is in large Texas cities.)

Do you not just have some store like Tom Thumb, Randall’s, Albertsons, Krogers, Sprouts, or H‑E‑B near you? I know there are places that don’t have good access to regular grocery stores, wondering if that’s the case for you or for some reason you see these as either too junky or too high end?

For sure there are more self checkout lanes, but it’s usually not too hard to find a regular staffed lane if that’s what you want.

Re: Private equity is buying everything from vet offices to tech conglomerates

#360

Post by tacocataco »

cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #270
motohagiography wrote: post #17

I've turned down interviews with several companies after finding out they were PE managed. If you need the job take it, but otherwise find something with hope. After looking them up on crunchbase or the public filings, a decline on sight policy on PE owned companies has saved me a lot of time and, I think, career suffering.

The problem is the vampiric, worker-hostile corporate ownership model. We need an ability to create and manage worker-owned co-ops more easily, maybe an "SAP for Co-ops". Not just to run them, but to collaborate on shared resources and infrastructure to federate smaller concerns as larger entities to the outside, be it a platform or a co-op network.

For the collaboration part, Mondragon sounds exactly what you're looking for.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

As for creating the worker owned businesses, I would recommend requiring every business that receives tax breaks or government contracts of any kind be equally owned by the workers.

That is public money and it should be used for the people's businesses. Don't worry, private businesses are so efficient, they don't need government help! Bootstraps.

Another idea is turning every post office into a bank and they only issue loans to local worker co-ops?

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