[jyl]

Broad brushes miss details, but here’s a broad brush comment anyway.

Most PE firms do not intend to hold their investments long term. To return their investors’ capital over the promised period, they have to sell what they buy, usually in a few or at most several years. Thus the most common complaint about PE firms: they run the acquired company to maximize short-term profit in order to raise the sale valuation, which can mean shortchanging customers, employees, or the company’s long term future. In other cases they run the acquired company to maximize short-term growth, if growth is what brings the better sale valuation. In other cases they load the company with debt, use that to pay the PE fund and investors, then sell the now debt-heavy company for whatever it fetches.