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Leveraged buyouts (vulture capital) is almost always an example of ... well, vultures. The company is already walking dead; they're just feasting on the corpse
by bombcar 9mo ago
Leveraged buyouts (vulture capital) is almost always an example of ... well, vultures.
The company is already walking dead; they're just feasting on the corpse. Left alone they'd peter out faster.
- flyinghamster 9mo agoExcept that Jo-Ann Fabrics was most definitely not walking dead when it was LBO'ed. I'd call this one vampire capitalism rather than vulture.
- bigbuppo 9mo agoTFA explains that's not actually the case, not just an assertion, but actual studies that backed it up.
- palmotea 9mo ago> The company is already walking dead; they're just feasting on the corpse. Left alone they'd peter out faster. Is that actually true, or just a story used to justify the bad actions? There are a lot of meme-stories like the latter, floating to justify all kinds of money-making behavior. People with money have the resources to plant them.
- bombcar 9mo agoIt's true in at least some of the famous cases (perhaps not this one; perhaps not Nabisco) - but you have to do deep digging into the financials to see it, a moribund company and a salvageable one often look quite similar from the outside. One way to tell is if the company does not emerge from bankruptcy but instead liquidates - it was probably already dead.
- whattheheckheck 9mo agoLike the entire libertarian party propaganda of the 50s
- red-iron-pine 9mo agothat's the standard agit-prop of the right for the last 80, brah
- thatguy0900 9mo agoExcept that the vulture capitalists definition of walking dead also includes companies that are profitable and healthy but not perpetually expanding and multiplying revenue every year. God forbid a company grow, reach some sort of local cap on size, then just comfortably exist to deliver a good service without trying to extract everything it possibly can from every customer. That's not walking dead and if all of the companies in the US were satisfied doing that this would be a much better country to live in.
- harpiaharpyja 9mo agoTFA makes a strong argument that that isn't the case. I would say it's even the thesis of the article. Joann Fabrics was a healthy company with customer demand and zero debt and was basically assassinated by a leveraged buyout.