Activity

As described in the introduction of this book, most of the $6.1 billion that Carlyle paid for ManorCare—$4.8 billion—was borrowed, while the firm and its investors put up the remainder. Carlyle’s first major move, in 2010, was to sell ManorCare’s real estate to another investment firm for over $6 b…

After she was laid off, Reinhart became active in the Dead Giraffe Society, a Facebook group of former Toys “R” Us employees named for the company’s mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe.121 With the assistance of the organizing group United for Respect, Reinhart and others began to advocate for better trea…

But why go through this whole process at all? Why would Friendly’s declare bankruptcy, just to be sold from one Sun Capital fund to another? The answer was simple: pensions. At the time of bankruptcy, Friendly’s had $115 million in pension liabilities.92 By selling Friendly’s to one of its affiliat…

At other times, private equity firms simply hired the wrong people. In 2012, Golden Gate Capital and Blum Capital bought the discount shoe seller Payless.65 As described in a detailed profile in the New York Times, through a series of owners, Payless tumbled through bankruptcy three times in four y…

Sometimes the problem was simply that private equity firms understaffed their stores. For instance, after BC Partners bought PetSmart in 2015, it bragged on its website that it increased the company’s profitability by “improving corporate efficiency.”58 But in practice, according to employees, this…