I've had several clients bought up by PE over the years. Usually just after my work with them refactoring for growth. It's fascinating to me to read about them having anything not go their way. Every deal was so clean and efficient - like a robotic butcher from a Looney Tunes cartoon. It also makes me wonder about the extended time frame since PE are often far better at the deal making than they are running businesses long-term. In other words, they can make a business efficient through strategic cuts, but building and managing it afterward is very different when that wasn't necessarily part of the plan.

A company I help start was sold to PE. They don't know products, solutions, or their users. They only know line items in a ledger. Their method can be summed up as:

1) Ship customer service overseas to save money.

2) Ship manufacturing overseas to save money.

3) Ship assembly over seas to save money.

4) Fire all institutional knowledge employees, because they have the highest salaries, and hire others a lower cost.

5) Ship jobs to poor states when they cannot be shipped oversea.

6) Raise the price of the product / solution.

7) Support politicians to promote false ideas such as "immigrants are taking your jobs", "tax cuts benefit everyone", "businesses are too big to fail", "deregulation will fix everything" ...

They want to make X in Y years. They don't care about people, the community, nor the environment. They only care about themselves and their bank accounts.

This is why I stopped buying from companies that I know have been bought by PE.