Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell

Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream

by Megan Greenwell

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Business & Finance

Private equity has reached into hospitals, daycare, supermarkets, newspapers, nursing homes and rental housing, and most of the people it touches barely understand how it works. Greenwell makes it concrete through four people: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a doctor in rural Wyoming, a Gannett newspaper journalist and a tenant organizer in a Northern Virginia apartment complex.

Core ideas
  • The playbook: Firms such as Apollo, Bain Capital and KKR use leveraged buyouts, loading the companies they acquire with debt while pulling out the profits.
  • The fallout: Those buyouts lead to bankruptcies, layoffs and the loss of local services that your community may depend on.
  • Polite words: In the New York Times review's reading, the industry hides what it does behind words like consolidation and efficiency.
Published2025
Pages294
ISBN9780063299351
ReadJul 2025

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