Please read up on the concept of Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), which were a thing since the 70s and 80s. Private equity LBOs have been a thing precisely because of credit available from banks. Last I checked, PE firms such as KKR are still prosperous, in spite of conducting an LBO of similar scale (RJR Nabisco), after saddling the company with extremely high amounts of debt (for the 80s).

And please don't drive the discussion to tangents and anecdata, even though your analogy is flawed.