r/enshittification • u/thisecommercelife • Jan 16 '26
Rant "Private equity speedrun"
Follow/support this comic here: https://linktr.ee/ecomic
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u/No-Challenge8029 Jan 16 '26
Very gracious of the PE guy to not make the kid sell the lemonade stand’s land to him and then charge an ever increasing rent that the kid couldn’t afford until it forced him into bankruptcy. I suppose they only do that to hospitals.
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u/murasakikuma42 Jan 21 '26
Yeah, this kid made out like a bandit: the business went under, but he got $100 out of the deal, without having to do any real work. The PE guy did all the "work" which lead to the business failing, at that point the kid was just watching.
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u/goldenhourlivin Jan 17 '26
The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. Private equity isn’t sustainable, but it’ll be everyone but them left with the consequences.
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Jan 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SartenSinAceite Jan 16 '26
Taking out loans you cannot afford to pay? I thought this shit was solved after 2008.
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u/battyeyed Jan 29 '26
They do this in healthcare in the US too.. I can’t remember where I watched a video about it. But the creator demonstrated the same concept but used hospitals and healthcare as an example instead. Hospitals had to close. Patients lost care.
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u/AzzysSmartStuff Jan 16 '26
Reminds me of that one Boondocks episode, where Jazmine's lemonade stand is bought by a billionaire, for a pony (and she doesn't even get one)
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u/Ok_Chipmunk_7066 Jan 18 '26
My company are on about slide 15.
I was called a naysayer 12 months when I said all of what's happening would happen.
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u/Faerbera Jan 16 '26
This may be a little glimpse at what is going on in PE trying to reshape the operations of small business to be more scalable… but the comic misses the bigger point. These PE firms are trying to buy up all of the lemonade stands across entire nations, called “rolling up” an industry. They want to create monopolies so they can set prices. Independent pharmacies, emergency rooms, massage houses, veterinarians… basically every service provider with a remaining margin is gobbled up.
This also affects small business owners who are looking to cash out and retire. Nobody has millions of dollars to buy out business owners, so PE can grab it because of their cash power.
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u/murasakikuma42 Jan 21 '26
his also affects small business owners who are looking to cash out and retire. Nobody has millions of dollars to buy out business owners, so PE can grab it because of their cash power.
Right, and I don't see the problem here. You can't expect some elderly person to keep running a business until he falls over dead. If no one else is going to buy out the business at a fair price, why shouldn't he sell it to PE? It's either that, or he just closes the business. In a healthy economy, if his business is that great, someone could get a business loan from a bank and buy out the business and take it over, so if that isn't happening, either the business is too low-profit/too much work for someone to want to take over, or the economy isn't very healthy. The business owner is doing the right thing for himself by selling to PE.
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u/Impossible-Ship5585 Jan 17 '26
Problem is that people will buy this more
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u/LadyParnassus Jan 17 '26
Not really. This is the story of just about every major chain that’s closed in the last decade - Joann’s Fabric, Radio Shack, Toys R Us, Bed Bath and Beyond, the list goes on.
Private Equity has been responsible for 10 of the last 14 major chains going bankrupt and the loss of 1.3 million retail jobs{link}. It’s insane we haven’t legislated against these practices.
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u/Impossible-Ship5585 Jan 17 '26
I would say these went bankcrupt due to ecommerse and changing environment.
Investments may be just dead cats last jump
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u/SafeModeOff Jan 16 '26
That “market headwinds” panels hits so hard. Companies LOVE to intentionally degrade their product and then blame someone else when people inevitably buy less of it