Private equity investment -good or bad?

[Eternalinsomniac]

Hi…this might be a bit specific. Has anyone worked for a company where private equity invested and sold the company on a few years later?
if so, what was it like? Any downsides? Did it become a sweatshop so they could make their growth look good before sale?
PE are about to invest in my workplace and I’m wondering whether to stick or twist.
Thanks

It's usually good for the PE investors and any senior management that are incentivised!

For regular staff it can be good if the business grows and gets investment that was lacking. But often what happens is the PE investor injects debt and sells off assets - profits from selling assets are dividended to the new owners rather than used to pay off the debt. So business then has to earn certain amount just to service the debt. Which means there is less cash for pay reviews etc - staff cuts may be required etc.

I wouldn't leave just because PE were buying but would be keeping an eye out on what was happening to the business.

Thank you that’s really helpful. We are a service industry so no physical assets to sell off, though they could get rid of staff I guess. They’ve said they won’t be servicing it via debt (it’s been done before in our sector and hasn’t gone well) so that’s a positive.

yes senior management are going to do extremely well from what we’ve seen of the figs