OverDrive sold to private equity firm KKR

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Private equity firms have been demonized for political purposes, but really there is nothing wrong with them.

I saw in another thread where you bemoaned posts in the declarative. This is an example. So it's all politics, is it?

Originally Posted by pwalker8

And some readers murder people. It doesn't follow that all readers are bad. Sigh.

But after rcentros gave perfectly fine and polite rebuttals to your declarative that "there's nothing wrong with them," that it's all politics, now you're sighing with impatience?

Sometimes PE can be useful. Sometimes. The other times? Financialization with little risk, squeeze money however they can, the health and longevity of the takeover business and their employees be damned. They don't just target sick companies, but are starting to target healthy companies, because they can still take their oversize profits. They take their fees from their investors, and then from the company via management fees (bringing in high-priced outside "experts" who know nothing of the business other than the books), almost always forcing debt on them for more profit taking.

Grocery chain example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...b8f_story.html

Toys 'R Us: http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press...-of-bankruptcy

How PE makes their profits, regardless: https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/s...57738088235009
https://cepr.shorthandstories.com/pr...age/index.html
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessrevi...-of-their-own/

How PE lobbied for the carried interest loophole:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/b...lobbyists.html

Mitt Romney and Bain:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...apital-183291/

PE behind medical "surprise billing" (because they saw that if they buy up doctors and facitilies, they can create instances of surprise billing to make outsize profits):
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/u...ent-unity.html

[bookyboy]

As someone with multiple friends in the operations side at TPG, I can assure you - PE is largely a gross business.

I hear way more about it than I should and the motivations are mostly pretty “yuck” with a lot of sugar coating.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Leveraged buyouts are often what make companies fail. And often it's done on purpose and it's a slimy practice of putting profits before people. It's so obnoxious that it's outlawed in other countries, like England. The U.S., on the other hand, seems to embrace these vultures.

KKR was involved in some slimy dealing. Not quite as slimy as some of the others, however, like Elliot & Associates. Whether KKR is reformed now, or not, I don't know but any time an equity firm gets their talons into one of your favorite companies it's time to start worrying about that company's future.

You are generally better off if a real equity firm buys your company than you are when someone else in the business buys your company, i.e. competitors. Competitors are much more likely to cut staff (since they already have staff that handles things like IT and HR) or sell off pieces they don't want to keep if they are buying for customer base or IP.

Equity firms tend to try to increase the value of a company so they can sell it off at a profit and frequently hold a company for a number of years. Yes, there are companies that specialize in buying companies, selling the assets then folding the company, but those companies are rarer than newspaper headlines would have you believe.

The so called vulture firms tend to buy failing companies and sell off the assets rather than buy healthy companies and sell off the assets. Remember vultures are carrion eaters, they rarely kill healthy prey.

If the issue, as mentioned by an earlier poster, is that the previous owner thought that it wasn't showing enough of a profit, then it's quite likely KKR simply thinks that with better management, waste and expenses can be reduced, thus increasing profit. That's how most equity firms actually work. Yes, they aren't always successful in turning around a company, but as most investors know, most investments don't strike gold.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by jj2me

I saw in another thread where you bemoaned posts in the declarative. This is an example. So it's all politics, is it?



But after rcentros gave perfectly fine and polite rebuttals to your declarative that "there's nothing wrong with them," that it's all politics, now you're sighing with impatience?

Sometimes PE can be useful. Sometimes. The other times? Financialization with little risk, squeeze money however they can, the health and longevity of the takeover business and their employees be damned. They don't just target sick companies, but are starting to target healthy companies, because they can still take their oversize profits. They take their fees from their investors, and then from the company via management fees (bringing in high-priced outside "experts" who know nothing of the business other than the books), almost always forcing debt on them for more profit taking.

Grocery chain example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...b8f_story.html

Toys 'R Us: http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press...-of-bankruptcy

How PE makes their profits, regardless: https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/s...57738088235009
https://cepr.shorthandstories.com/pr...age/index.html
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessrevi...-of-their-own/

How PE lobbied for the carried interest loophole:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/b...lobbyists.html

Mitt Romney and Bain:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...apital-183291/

PE behind medical "surprise billing" (because they saw that if they buy up doctors and facitilies, they can create instances of surprise billing to make outsize profits):
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/u...ent-unity.html

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, made the point that regardless of which side of the political spectrum you are talking about, when only one side carries a narrative, be suspicious, but if both side carries the story, then it's likely true. It's a pretty good rule of thumb.

[bookyboy]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, made the point that regardless of which side of the political spectrum you are talking about, when only one side carries a narrative, be suspicious, but if both side carries the story, then it's likely true. It's a pretty good rule of thumb.

Is he the one still denying climate change?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bookyboy

Is he the one still denying climate change?

Until we see larger trees growing again on Greenland, the climate has not yet returned to it's "normal" state before the Little Ice Age set in around 1300 AD.

It may be of interest to some that the IPCC Climate Change report in 2001 dismissed the Medieval Warm Period from 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from 1300 AD to ~1915 AD as not existing leading to the infamous quote from Al Gore: “Our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this. Today's climate pattern has existed throughout the entire history of human civilization.”

Neither side of the climate change discussion has even close to clean hands but the climate change is driven by humans side has definitely gone a lot further in their abuse of the scientific method -- gee, you mean modifying the mean temperatures recorded world wide in the 1930s and 1940s isn't a valid technique? Dropping 75% of the temperature recording stations and retaining only those that showed temperature increases? And don't even get into the code used to generate the infamous "hockey stick" since the Climategate hack showed that no matter what the input data, the output did not change.

Also note that contrary to what appears to be the common belief, carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas nor is it even the most effective one. Dihydrogen oxide (AKA water vapor) is number one on that list along with methane and some less common gases such as nitrous oxide, ozone, sulfur hexaflouride, chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons.

[bookyboy]

Now I wish I hadn’t said anything.

You all have a great day here.
I’m out

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DNSB

...

So, where are you on ocean pH change?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by bookyboy

Now I wish I hadn’t said anything.

You all have a great day here.
I’m out

I'm sure you are, but when you make ad hominem attack rather than discuss the actual point, you tend to open yourself up for such things. I have no idea what Scott Adams' view is with regards to Anthropogenic Global Warming/ Global Warming/ Climate Change is. It really has no relevance with regards to the point that the quote made.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Until we see larger trees growing again on Greenland, the climate has not yet returned to it's "normal" state before the Little Ice Age set in around 1300 AD.

It may be of interest to some that the IPCC Climate Change report in 2001 dismissed the Medieval Warm Period from 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from 1300 AD to ~1915 AD as not existing leading to the infamous quote from Al Gore: “Our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this. Today's climate pattern has existed throughout the entire history of human civilization.”

Neither side of the climate change discussion has even close to clean hands but the climate change is driven by humans side has definitely gone a lot further in their abuse of the scientific method -- gee, you mean modifying the mean temperatures recorded world wide in the 1930s and 1940s isn't a valid technique? Dropping 75% of the temperature recording stations and retaining only those that showed temperature increases? And don't even get into the code used to generate the infamous "hockey stick" since the Climategate hack showed that no matter what the input data, the output did not change.

Also note that contrary to what appears to be the common belief, carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas nor is it even the most effective one. Dihydrogen oxide (AKA water vapor) is number one on that list along with methane and some less common gases such as nitrous oxide, ozone, sulfur hexaflouride, chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons.

It really would be nice if we could discuss such things without it being an emotional issue (I'm not accusing you of being emotional, just that in general, people seem to have trouble discussing it rationally). It really is an interesting historical and scientific subject.

[binaryhermit]

As an employee of a large supermarket chain that's owned by a private equity fund named after a mythical three-headed dog... PE funds can go to hell.

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, made the point that regardless of which side of the political spectrum you are talking about, when only one side carries a narrative, be suspicious, but if both side carries the story, then it's likely true. It's a pretty good rule of thumb.

Politics again, just like you declare that bad faith PE ventures are not that, but rather "demonized for political purposes."

It must be strange going through life having the winds of politics shape your opinions, rather than doing your own due diligence.

[stumped]

this used to be an interesting thread, then it got all politicised

I am interested in the future outlook for Overdrive, for Kobo...

I am not at all interested in reading here about the good/evil of PE in general-

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by jj2me

Politics again, just like you declare that bad faith PE ventures are not that, but rather "demonized for political purposes."

It must be strange going through life having the winds of politics shape your opinions, rather than doing your own due diligence.

I don't know. I've never had that issue.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by stumped

this used to be an interesting thread, then it got all politicised

I am interested in the future outlook for Overdrive, for Kobo...

I am not at all interested in reading here about the good/evil of PE in general-

I don't know that we really have any idea what the future outlook of Overdrive, Kobo, or for that matter, B&N, since they also got bought. One hopes that the new owner can improve the product, but that remains to be seen.

One question is what would the optimum result for Overdrive be?