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Posted
1 minute ago, Vegas64 said:

To your point, I assume you are an honest lawyer who is good at what you do and you extract some amount of money at 1/6 hour increments for the good of your customer, your firm and yourself. I assume most lawyers attempt to operate in this way.

I also understand that the law profession has some less than honest firms who work in the margins or outright do unethical things for a buck. The slash and burn firms, who get the bad press and give the laymen the impression of lawyers are liars and morally suspect. The same impression that gives us the tome of lawyer jokes found next to the book of aggie jokes.

No disagreement.  In fact, GOLL and I were just discussing that issue -- our real-world observation of a plunge in ethics, civility, and decency among members of the Bar and the bench.  Judges are increasingly treating the lawyers practicing before them with minimal courtesy.  Conversations with opposing counsel that should be cordial, short, and agreeable, end up combative for no good reason at all.  Etc. etc. ad nausuem.

The point being, the poison here is not in PE, or the legal profession, or fast food restaurant employee policies -- it is an across-the-board social poison.

Our dominant values are 1) extract all possible value for yourself, regardless of the cost, 2) fuck everyone but me, I got mine, 3) fuck you, I don't owe you anything, not even basic courtesy, 4) enshittification good, quality and ethical performance bad, etc.  We have made gods of our worst nature, and deemed basic humanity and decency the devil incarnate.  Once you do that....things are not going to go well.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Vegas64 said:

I actually think we see a pullback of PE (I read last week that PE deals have actually declined in recent years, contrary to the perception that PE is manifest destiny'ing all the business) and anyone following finance and news has seen the trend is actually in private credit.

PE by any other name would smell as rancid

Posted
2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

No disagreement.  In fact, GOLL and I were just discussing that issue -- our real-world observation of a plunge in ethics, civility, and decency among members of the Bar and the bench.  Judges are increasingly treating the lawyers practicing before them with minimal courtesy.  Conversations with opposing counsel that should be cordial, short, and agreeable, end up combative for no good reason at all.  Etc. etc. ad nausuem.

The point being, the poison here is not in PE, or the legal profession, or fast food restaurant employee policies -- it is an across-the-board social poison.

Our dominant values are 1) extract all possible value for yourself, regardless of the cost, 2) fuck everyone but me, I got mine, 3) fuck you, I don't owe you anything, not even basic courtesy, 4) enshittification good, quality and ethical performance bad, etc.  We have made gods of our worst nature, and deemed basic humanity and decency the devil incarnate.  Once you do that....things are not going to go well.

Well...this is depressing. I WAS having a good day. I've been reading about Ancient Rome lately (written about it a bit in the Movies thread) and have been having a hard time as it is thinking about the decline of our society. Thanks for the cherry on top. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Captainant said:

IMO Private Equity is just the essence of american idividualism, but applied to capitalism. Every business entity they interact with or come into ownership of is just another resource to exploit. There's no downside to fucking them over, because you'll have moved on to the next thing before they realize you drank their milkshake.

That ethos of "fuck the next year, we gotta fix the next quarter!!!" and epidemic of short-term thinking is what got us here. But by the same token, that sort of insane and dangerous risk taking is exactly how you become a billionaire and join the ranks of the "elite". So it's no wonder why every business-brained asshole doesn't give a shit about consequences, if you do things right you won't have to worry about the consequences.

It's certainly working for elmo so far. He's taken tens of billions in losses and it literally doesn't fucking matter. He still has the keys to the kingdom and the ear of the mad king

Heard someone complaining about Whataburger in the real world today and it made me realize:

If you were to make a venn diagram of "people who will defend capitalism until their dying breath" and "people who complain the loudest about things being worse than they used to be" it would be a single circle, without any hint of irony.

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Heard someone complaining about Whataburger in the real world today and it made me realize:

If you were to make a venn diagram of "people who will defend capitalism until their dying breath" and "people who complain the loudest about things being worse than they used to be" it would be a single circle, without any hint of irony.

I mean, not true.  Plenty of us here bitching about WB's decline and how anarcho/amoral/immoral capitalism is killing it.  What we have turned capitalism into is poison.  I'm not anti-capitalist, so maybe I will "defend it," but I'll sure as shit say that capitalism unbound by the rule of law, ethics, or humanity is pure shit.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What we have turned capitalism into is poison.  I'm not anti-capitalist, so maybe I will "defend it," but I'll sure as shit say that capitalism unbound by the rule of law, ethics, or humanity is pure shit.

We are hurtling towards a feudalism-based system again. Ultra-wealthy elites buy up and hold and own property, who in turn seek rents from the people who will live in/on that property and generate wealth through their labor. 

PE buying up housing and turning around and renting it to families, rather than those families getting the benefit of owning the home and growing their wealth is an extremely salient example of that behavior. If you want to be able to rent the nice house, you'd better get to work peasant. You certainly aren't gonna be able to outbid them to buy a nice house if you're just a wage earner.

Posted
9 minutes ago, Captainant said:

We are hurtling towards a feudalism-based system again. Ultra-wealthy elites buy up and hold and own property, who in turn seek rents from the people who will live in/on that property and generate wealth through their labor. 

PE buying up housing and turning around and renting it to families, rather than those families getting the benefit of owning the home and growing their wealth is an extremely salient example of that behavior. If you want to be able to rent the nice house, you'd better get to work peasant. You certainly aren't gonna be able to outbid them to buy a nice house if you're just a wage earner.


its a wonderful life christmas movies GIF

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Posted (edited)

Again, we seem to be focusing on the predatory PE firms that make more of their ROI on fees from third parties. I doubt that's the majority as it's a risky play (and I honestly don't even understand the economics of those firms). Many firms keep original owners on as share holders to some degree and most get the best ROI by improving the companies they buy in order to get maximum multiples from the next buyer. What "next buyer" is going to look at a gutted company with zero remaining culture, lack of discipline, declining assets, restructured but increasing debt loads and think "gee, I'd gladly play 10x EBITDA for that". That's just not how it works.

And the due diligence process is exhaustive - if your company has been beaten down by PE and your employees are pissed to hell and ready to leave, that's gonna come out. 

Edited by dieucla98
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Posted (edited)

PE firms are just a pure expression of capitalism. That’s for another discussion.
 

Many PE firms buy founder led companies. Most founders want to make money - true - but it started with an expertise or a passion for the company’s mission they started and not just profit. That can often be lost in an acquisition by anyone, not just a PE firm.
 

Add the structure used and it can compound the issues. Many times PE firms use significant debt in their acquisitions. That debt is often private credit (either primary or mez debt behind a more traditional lender). private credit can have flexible terms early but higher interest rates and short term maturities which can require a refi or a sale. 

Add the pressure of realizing good annualized returns and there is pressure to increase EBITDA to elevate out of a 5x multiple and get to an 8x multiple or even further up the chain. So while the people aren’t necessarily bad people, the deal structure itself encourages a 3-5-7 year strategy and a go-go-go mentality at the operator level which can sacrifice the intangibles that made a company a great company to begin with.  What’s left may still be a solid business - maybe even better in some ways - but it will be different with that different ownership group.

Edited by troph
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Posted

Private credit deals can insulate a company from a change in management / ownership. We are doing 3 of these this year but they only delay the sale. The sale to PE firms is still lurking out there. 

Posted
7 hours ago, elfenix said:

"Chicago assholes" is entirely related to Whataburger and how any perceived decline or negative change is attributed to that one PE firm based in Chicago. So, it's not even all assholes in Chicago, such as yourself, to whom that epithet applies. Just that one PE firm.

 

If Whataburger changed the default condiments from mustard to ketchup and mayo I believe there would an an actual army marching north immediately.

My nearest Whataburger went to shit right after the takeover and I didn't go back for a long time.  I gave it another chance last year and it was very close to prior standards.

Posted

Upon more reflection, I'd like to correct my earlier statement - PE isn't dead-focused on next quarter; it's focused solely on growth. Growth at all costs. It's that empty reflex to do nothing BUT grow - not improve the service or product UNLESS it will lead to growth.

It's that shitty mindset that turns everything into a mini Glengarry Glenn Ross with high pressure and stakes for no reason but to hopefully squeeze another morsel of growth. 

In biology, a thing that grows forever unbounded is just cancer.

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Posted
6 hours ago, dieucla98 said:

What "next buyer" is going to look at a gutted company with zero remaining culture, lack of discipline, declining assets, restructured but increasing debt loads and think "gee, I'd gladly play 10x EBITDA for that". That's just not how it works.

Because they think they can turn it around or at least make it attractive enough for the next PE. I’ve seen it in real time.  

Posted
8 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Upon more reflection, I'd like to correct my earlier statement - PE isn't dead-focused on next quarter; it's focused solely on growth. Growth at all costs. It's that empty reflex to do nothing BUT grow - not improve the service or product UNLESS it will lead to growth.

It's that shitty mindset that turns everything into a mini Glengarry Glenn Ross with high pressure and stakes for no reason but to hopefully squeeze another morsel of growth. 

In biology, a thing that grows forever unbounded is just cancer.

Or at least the perception of growth. The idea of growth.  Theoretical growth if you just tweak the right dials. There’s a sucker born every minute. And gold in them thar hills. 

Posted

It’s gonna happen. Trust.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/02/24/private-equity-is-set-to-revolutionize-college-athletics/

Private equity will invest in college sports, but initial efforts may target a small number of elite college football programs. These programs are likely to adopt innovative legal and governance structures to navigate current uncertainties. As these models succeed, other schools will need to adapt to remain competitive, potentially paving the way for broader private investment opportunities. Over time, private equity is positioned to fundamentally reshape college sports.

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Posted
25 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Upon more reflection, I'd like to correct my earlier statement - PE isn't dead-focused on next quarter; it's focused solely on growth. Growth at all costs. It's that empty reflex to do nothing BUT grow - not improve the service or product UNLESS it will lead to growth.

It's that shitty mindset that turns everything into a mini Glengarry Glenn Ross with high pressure and stakes for no reason but to hopefully squeeze another morsel of growth. 

In biology, a thing that grows forever unbounded is just cancer.

How do you grow if not through things like product or service?

Ya, you can restructure debt or reduce opex... But that's a one time lever. And no one is going to pay a multiple on a one time lever.

Posted
On 3/18/2025 at 2:01 PM, royiv said:

Steward, one of the main characters in the MPT story, was PE-backed Ponzi scheme that bought up distressed hospitals (St. Joe’s in downtown Houston being one of them) and then sold the real estate assets to MPT for inflated sums in order to quickly funnel cash back to investors. The hospitals that Steward owned were, at best, B-team players and already struggling financially when Steward acquired them. The one time I had to go to Dallas to meet with their C-suite, my immediate thought was that their lavish corporate HQ decidedly did not match the hospital facilities that they ran.

Steward declared bankruptcy and folded 6 months ago.  To my knowledge all of their hospitals have been auctioned off at pennies on the dollar.  They stopped paying all their vendors prior, and they owed upwards of $500,000,000 when they folded.  Their CEO later became the first person to not show up for a congressional subpoena.  He’s too busy on his $45,000,000 boat.  There are a few good articles out there that expose the corruption.  Hope that all involved get what they deserve, but that’ll never happen.

Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, dieucla98 said:

How do you grow if not through things like product or service?

Ya, you can restructure debt or reduce opex... But that's a one time lever. And no one is going to pay a multiple on a one time lever.

They grow by slapping buzzword labels onto their products and services. See: blockchain, AI, et al. And they ALWAYS restructure debt and reduce opex/SGA costs because hey, keep costs low right? Who cares if that cost center or loss leader was holding up a customer base, or actually creating revenue greater than the expenses?? CUT THEM COSTS WE NEED TO GROW!! I see that sort of thinking everywhere in the wake of PE buyouts and wherever a consultancy has sunk in it's fangs.

It's really more that not everything needs to grow and be a big business. That's like arguing an ecosystem should only have apex predators and no small animals and bugs or flora. The rush to growth for the sake of growth has been the direct cause of sooooo many otherwise healthy businesses to blow up and implode under their own weight.

Businesses should stop acting like it's a supremacy sprint out there. That supremacy impulse is driven by PE pukes coming in and NEEDING to get their money back now that they put it into your business.

Edited by Captainant
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Posted
17 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Exactly this. They are still motivated by short term gains and I would argue even more destructive than public corporations because as long as they get theirs in the timeframe they established, they fuck over everyone in their way. 

You don’t understand what “short term gains” means. PE typically has a rigid 3-5 year cycle where they build value and sell. That is not short term.  The home runs they hit are largely happenstance. The rigidity of their model fucks over companies that don’t hit home runs, and short-sightedly fucks over the Funds’ own returns. Their model, in many industries, has been a failure for many years. 

They are nowhere near as reactive as public companies. By design.  Sometimes to their benefit and sometimes to detriment.

I haven’t noticed a change in WB.  I don’t eat there as often as I used to.  It’s been hit or miss for years.  The hits have a high ceiling and the misses have a high floor.

 

Posted
10 hours ago, Satchel said:

It’s gonna happen. Trust.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/02/24/private-equity-is-set-to-revolutionize-college-athletics/

Private equity will invest in college sports, but initial efforts may target a small number of elite college football programs. These programs are likely to adopt innovative legal and governance structures to navigate current uncertainties. As these models succeed, other schools will need to adapt to remain competitive, potentially paving the way for broader private investment opportunities. Over time, private equity is positioned to fundamentally reshape college sports.

I read yesterday the SF Giants are selling to PE. The NFL owners voted last year to allow PE money take ownership.

Posted
2 hours ago, Captainant said:

They grow by slapping buzzword labels onto their products and services. See: blockchain, AI, et al. And they ALWAYS restructure debt and reduce opex/SGA costs because hey, keep costs low right? Who cares if that cost center or loss leader was holding up a customer base, or actually creating revenue greater than the expenses?? CUT THEM COSTS WE NEED TO GROW!! I see that sort of thinking everywhere in the wake of PE buyouts and wherever a consultancy has sunk in it's fangs.

It's really more that not everything needs to grow and be a big business. That's like arguing an ecosystem should only have apex predators and no small animals and bugs or flora. The rush to growth for the sake of growth has been the direct cause of sooooo many otherwise healthy businesses to blow up and implode under their own weight.

Businesses should stop acting like it's a supremacy sprint out there. That supremacy impulse is driven by PE pukes coming in and NEEDING to get their money back now that they put it into your business.

Yep, this is good explanation for how we end up with every large service provider having absolute shit for customer service, whether it's making it practically impossible to get a live person on the phone with the ability to help, or making us talk to poorly paid ESL foreigners who are frequently difficult to understand. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Rex Kramer said:

You don’t understand what “short term gains” means. PE typically has a rigid 3-5 year cycle where they build value and sell. That is not short term.  The home runs they hit are largely happenstance. The rigidity of their model fucks over companies that don’t hit home runs, and short-sightedly fucks over the Funds’ own returns. Their model, in many industries, has been a failure for many years. 

They are nowhere near as reactive as public companies. By design.  Sometimes to their benefit and sometimes to detriment.

I haven’t noticed a change in WB.  I don’t eat there as often as I used to.  It’s been hit or miss for years.  The hits have a high ceiling and the misses have a high floor.

 

3-5 years is longer than the public company quarterly cycle but it's not long term.

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Posted
11 minutes ago, troph said:

3-5 years is longer than the public company quarterly cycle but it's not long term.

1) No shit

2) I know

3) it sure as shit isn’t “short term”, which is what I was responding to. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Rex Kramer said:

1) No shit

2) I know

3) it sure as shit isn’t “short term”, which is what I was responding to. 

in the life cycle of a business that was possibly founded 15 years prior it sure is short term.

Posted
3 minutes ago, troph said:

in the life cycle of a business that was possibly founded 15 years prior it sure is short term.

No. It’s mid-term. Short-term would be within a year. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Rex Kramer said:

No. It’s mid-term. Short-term would be within a year. 

fair enough, my first comment was it isn't long term. 7-10 yrs is long term in my view.

Posted (edited)
20 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean, not true.  Plenty of us here bitching about WB's decline and how anarcho/amoral/immoral capitalism is killing it.  What we have turned capitalism into is poison.  I'm not anti-capitalist, so maybe I will "defend it," but I'll sure as shit say that capitalism unbound by the rule of law, ethics, or humanity is pure shit.

Here's a question for you or anyone else.  I feel like (muh feels!) that business at one time in this country was a bit more civic minded and socially responsible than over the last few decades.

There are some milestones like Milton Friedman and "trickle down" that seem to correspond with declining social responsibility, but is my feeling one of those erroneous notions like 50s America was great?

Also, this brings to mind that Trump's adoration of the "gilded age" is so on point:  an industrial revolution not unique to America exploited by robber barons where wealth and income inequality skyrocketed, culminating in anti-business legislation.  He loves it because of tariffs and no income tax, but it was a fairly disastrous few decades for all but the very wealthy.

So, post-WWII America, the "golden age," for all its flaws, is much preferable to the gilded age.

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted

No, you are not mistaken. The GE CEO before Jack Welch was proud of how much GE paid their lower employees. Proud of their generous benefits. And only made like $500k a year or something like that

Companies would compete to make their business the best place to work and not simply the least awful

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Posted
12 minutes ago, safe sex said:

No, you are not mistaken. The GE CEO before Jack Welch was proud of how much GE paid their lower employees. Proud of their generous benefits. And only made like $500k a year or something like that

Companies would compete to make their business the best place to work and not simply the least awful

I remember seeing that GE annual report posted.  Couldn't find it again but found an archive of them and glanced at the 50s-60s ones and didn't see the same sentiment.  Did see some anti-union and usual rent-seeking sort of stuff, though.

I do know that before the depression, equity investment (stocks) were regarded as rank speculation, while bonds were the dominant form of corporate finance and Benjamin Graham's Securities Analysis focused on very fundamental business analysis like cash flows, assets to debts, etc. so the emphasis was on long-term survival and measured growth based on sustainable profitability.  "Internet stocks" would never have achieved the value they currently have under such analysis.

And we all know what has happened since.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

So, post-WWII America, the "golden age," for all its flaws, is much preferable to the gilded age.

It was the era of "enough for most everyone"* vs. the era of "an enormous amount for a very select few."

Average per capita wealth is a shitty measure -- a couple of dudes can have eleventy billion dollars, everyone else has tree fiddy.  Compare to "most everyone has enough...some are poor, some are rich, but most folks are in the middle, ranging from "getting by" to "doing well."

 

* Asterisk because, ummm, for a lot of that period, "this offer not available to black people" and whatnot.  Even our golden age had plenty of tarnish....but the systems and patterns were there for broad success, and progress continued to be made.

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Posted
15 hours ago, Captainant said:

Upon more reflection, I'd like to correct my earlier statement - PE isn't dead-focused on next quarter; it's focused solely on growth. Growth at all costs. It's that empty reflex to do nothing BUT grow - not improve the service or product UNLESS it will lead to growth.

It's that shitty mindset that turns everything into a mini Glengarry Glenn Ross with high pressure and stakes for no reason but to hopefully squeeze another morsel of growth. 

In biology, a thing that grows forever unbounded is just cancer.

 

Posted
2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

There. Now stfu and quit being an obtuse prick. 
 

image.thumb.png.dd21d62e4612088f3f9d510a1a1114d6.png

I don’t know why you’re dying on this hill. You’re 100% wrong. Short term and long term are defined business terms. You’re a moron. Hasta luego. 



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