Resources
In sector after sector, the extractive PE playbook is the same: Buy up assets, load them with debt, strip them of assets, squeeze workers, customers, and patients, and sell them off after a few years. Learn more about how this destructive business model is hurting people, and how we’re fighting back!
Explore the growing body of evidence, including personal stories, analysis from economists, and academic research that show the depth and depravity of private equity greed.
Private equity firms have boosted their investments in energy, with over $1 trillion invested in the sector since 2010. The lion’s share of these energy investments have been in conventional forms like oil, gas, and coal – and in many cases, dirty assets that public companies have offloaded.
PE-owned healthcare companies are not only terrible for healthcare workers, they are also dangerous for patients and community health. PE-owned healthcare companies have been linked with the closure of safety net hospitals, extortionary surprise billing, and higher death rates in nursing homes.
Private equity-owned housing companies are some of the worst landlords in the country, driving up rents and fees while skimping on maintenance and being unresponsive to tenant complaints. They also drive up the cost of buying a home by snatching up large numbers of houses with all cash offers, othen pushing out potential first time homebuyers.
PE-owned companies are terrible employers. They squeeze worker pay and benefits, slash jobs, and even drive retail stores into bankruptcy. In fact, more than half (55.4 percent) of retail bankruptcies between 2015 and 2020 were at private equity chains.
Private equity firms contribute to income and wealth inequality and exacerbate the racial wealth gap. Private equity executives are overwhelmingly white and male, even by Wall Street standards. And the workers and communities they exploit are often largely Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.
Private equity firms contribute to income and wealth inequality and exacerbate the racial wealth gap. Private equity executives are overwhelmingly white and male, even by Wall Street standards. And the workers and communities they exploit are often largely Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.
FACT SHEET: Stop Private Equity from Driving Retailers into Bankruptcy, Destroying Jobs and Livelihoods
Private equity has had a disastrous impact on the retail industry, driving dozens of firms into bankruptcy, shutting down tens of thousands of stores, and costing hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide.View Link about FACT SHEET: Stop Private Equity from Driving Retailers into Bankruptcy, Destroying Jobs and Livelihoods
FACT SHEET: Stop Private Equity-Owned Nursing Homes from Extracting Profits at the Expense of Care
Private equity firms have bought up thousands of nursing homes across the country, lowering the quality of care and harming residents.View Link about FACT SHEET: Stop Private Equity-Owned Nursing Homes from Extracting Profits at the Expense of Care
FACT SHEET: Close the carried interest loophole that is a tax dodge for super-rich private equity executives
The carried interest tax loophole is an income tax avoidance scheme that allows private equity and hedge fund executives — some of the richest people in the world — to substantially lower the amount they pay in taxes, exacerbating income and wealth inequalities.View Link about FACT SHEET: Close the carried interest loophole that is a tax dodge for super-rich private equity executives
REPORT: Public Money For Private Equity: Pandemic Relief Went To Companies Backed By Private Equity Titans
This study estimates that at least $5.3 billion in CARES Act money went to 611 portfolio companies owned or backed by private equity firms that held $908 billion in cash reserves.View Link about REPORT: Public Money For Private Equity: Pandemic Relief Went To Companies Backed By Private Equity Titans
REPORT: Public Money For Private Equity: Pandemic Relief Went To Companies Backed By Private Equity Titans
This study estimates that at least $5.3 billion in CARES Act money went to 611 portfolio companies owned or backed by private equity firms that held $908 billion in cash reserves.View Link about REPORT: Public Money For Private Equity: Pandemic Relief Went To Companies Backed By Private Equity Titans
BLOG POST: Wall Street Money, Racism and the Politics of Anti-Democracy
The billionaires and millionaires of Wall Street deploy so much money to influence American politics and society that we can easily lose track of how pervasive it is.They spread money around to campaigns, think tanks, and lobbyists. Wealthy executives finance universities, cultural institutions, and hospitals.View Link about BLOG POST: Wall Street Money, Racism and the Politics of Anti-Democracy
Blog: Private Equity and The Care Economy
Having a rapacious business like private equity watching over particularly vulnerable people has never been a good idea. Still the evidence is mounting that Wall Street has pushed the envelope in recent years. Nursing homes, youth facilities, and homes for disabled adults have all fallen under the ownership of an industry with a track record of prioritizing wealth extraction over running companies well, to say nothing of caring for people in need.View Link
MEMO: Sun Capital Case Study of Private Equity Looting
Today, private equity controls some 8,000 companies in the United States, more than twice as many companies as are publicly traded on U.S. stock markets.View Link about MEMO: Sun Capital Case Study of Private Equity Looting
BLOG POST: Unconditional Corporate Bailout Allows Private Equity to Enrich Itself by $10 billion
Today, Wall Street’s private equity pirates are managing to loot the companies they control with a round of bond sales and a lift from the Federal Reserve.View Link about BLOG POST: Unconditional Corporate Bailout Allows Private Equity to Enrich Itself by $10 billion
BLOG POST: Private Equity Profiteering from Incarceration, Tools of Police Brutality
A less known, but insidious form of systemic racism is the business model practiced by Wall Street private equity (PE) firms. PE firms often profit from extracting wealth from communities of color and exacerbating racial inequalities. PE cash has been funneled into odious businesses like payday lenders and corporate landlords that particularly target Black and Latinx communities.View Link about BLOG POST: Private Equity Profiteering from Incarceration, Tools of Police Brutality
FACT SHEET: J. Crew Succumbs to Bankruptcy after Private Equity Debt, Financial Looting
Although the Coronavirus economic downturn exacerbated the company’s struggles, the private equity-imposed debt loads and financial engineering made J. Crew’s bankruptcy almost inevitable — putting J. Crew’s more than 14,000 workers at risk of losing their jobs.View Link about FACT SHEET: J. Crew Succumbs to Bankruptcy after Private Equity Debt, Financial Looting
FACT SHEET: Private Equity Vultures Eye Real Estate During Coronavirus Crisis
It’s been well documented how private equity firms profited from the 2008 economic crisis. After millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure, private equity firms swept in, buying commercial, single- and multi-family properties at a steep discount, and later raising rents, gouging tenants with fees, skimping on maintenance, and using aggressive collections and evictions strategies.View Link about FACT SHEET: Private Equity Vultures Eye Real Estate During Coronavirus Crisis
BLOG POST: Wall Street’s Secret Pet Profiteering
Americans spent about $115 billion on pets in 2018 (more than we spent on cell phones). And Wall Street private equity firms have been steadily gobbling up all sorts of businesses to capitalize on pet profits. Today, private equity (PE) firms own major pet retailers (PetSmart and Petco), thousands of veterinary clinics, pet insurance companies, and pet product manufacturers.View Link about BLOG POST: Wall Street’s Secret Pet Profiteering
FACT SHEET: Private Equity-Owned Payday Lenders Profit Off Trapping People in Debt
Private equity has pushed into the high-priced consumer loan industry, offering payday and other consumer loans that profit off trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt. Private equity firms own over 5,000 storefront payday and online lenders that often make loans at 300% annual percentage rates (APR) and higher.View Link about FACT SHEET: Private Equity-Owned Payday Lenders Profit Off Trapping People in Debt
BLOG POST: Wall Street and private equity are “gobbling up homes,” driving inflation and exacerbating the housing crisis
In a House Financial Services Committee hearing from the beginning of March, both Representatives and witnesses discussed how Wall Street and private equity are causing housing prices to soar and driving inflation. Read More
RESEARCH MEMO: New AFR Research Estimating Minimum Number of Private Equity-Owned Housing Units
Private equity firms have become some of the country’s biggest corporate landlords. Americans for Financial Reform estimated that as of June 2022, at a minimum, private equity firms owned real estate rented by around 1.6 million families. Read More
BLOG POST: Private Equity Set to Loot Albertsons Ahead of Proposed Merger With Rival Kroger
Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity owner of Albertsons grocery stores, is quickly moving to extract an unusually large amount of money from the grocer that would leave Albertsons in a much worse position to repay the massive debt load put on by its private equity owners. This move puts many of Albertsons’ workers and their pensions at risk. Read More
BUZZFEED NEWS: Profit, Pain, and Private Equity
A year-long investigation by Buzzfeed News titled “Profit, Pain, and Private Equity” painstakingly detailed the abuses that arise from private equity firm KKR’s purchase and management of BrightSpring Health Services, a company that manages group homes for disabled adults, many of whom need around-the-clock supervision and healthcare. “Some vulnerable residents suffered abuse and neglect,” the authors wrote. Conditions were “often dire, and in some cases fatal.” Read More
PRO PUBLICA: When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord
Amid a national housing crisis, giant private equity firms have been buying up apartment buildings en masse to squeeze them for profit, with the help of government-backed Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, tenants say they’re the ones paying the price. Read More
REPORT: New Scorecard Shows Private Equity’s Race to the Bottom on Climate
The Carlyle Group, Warburg Pincus, and KKR are the top three offenders on climate among private equity firms, continuing to invest in polluting industries and exposing investors to significant climate-related risk, according to a new scorecard developed by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF). View Report
REPORT: Private Equity is Financing the Climate Crisis Away from Public Scrutiny
A new report finds that the private equity industry owned close to 700 utility-scale power generation facilities in the United States in 2021 that emitted about 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. View Report
REPORT: The Carlyle Group’s Hidden Climate Impact: Exposing a Decade of Fossil Fuel Investments
Investigation Exposes Carlyle Group’s Hidden Climate Impact View Report