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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.

AllClimate/EnvironmentHealthcareHousingJobs/RetailRacial Injustice/EqualityWealth/income Inequality

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.

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
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
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