(You're right - I made a mess of things, and inter-mingled the cases where a privately-owned company is sold directly to private equity / vulture capitalists, a

(You're right - I made a mess of things, and inter-mingled the cases where a privately-owned company is sold directly to private equity / vulture capitalists, and the case where a privately-owned company "goes public" - but that still does not lead to a happy ending.)