Re:Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys...
by curiousllama on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @03:46PM
(#36315888)
It REALLY matters what kind of PE you’re talking about.
Bought by a growth equity fund? Probably fine. Bought as part of a roll up? Probably screwed.
PE is like tech: similar tools, but very different firms.
Re:Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys...
by chiph on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @04:01PM
(#36316099)
A previous firm I worked at was bought as part of a roll-up (market segment consolidation). If you're the firm that they're rolling all their acquisitions into, that's great & exciting. If you're one of the roll-ees, not so much.
They bought us not for our technology but our customer base. They intended to convert them all to their other firm's product. Little did they know that a lot of our customers had left the other firm for us because we treated them better.. So what happened is in addition to the back office staff & sales staff being laid off, they laid off the developers & testers too (they kept a few managers for a year for continuity). I realized this when the folks they sent to town refused to go to lunch with us in an rather awkward moment.
Re:Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys...
by SNosTrAnDbLe on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @06:19PM
(#36318392)
That is funny as the exact thing happened in my startup as well (we were one of the roll-ees)
We got some suits sent by the PE after the funding round.They politely said that they had other plans when we invited them for lunch.
A similar thing to what you described happened at a software company where I used to work at, culture destroyed, many people let go. I will name and shame the PE firm - it was Hg Capital
However currently, I've been at a company for a few years who is owned by Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, and it's a completely different story. The culture is great and hasn't changed at all