Bad Company - Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream

A damning indictment of the private equity industry told through the stories of four American workers whose lives and communities were upended by the ruinous effects of private equity takeovers. Private equity runs our country, yet few Americans have any idea how ingrained it is in their lives. Private equity controls hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, voting machine manufacturers, local newspapers, nursing home operators, fertility clinics, and prison service providers. The industry manages highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and owns a growing swath of commercial and residential real estate. Private equity executives, meanwhile, are not only among the wealthiest people in American society, but also modern-day barons with outsized influence on our politics and legislation. Yet their firms have to disclose almost nothing about how they operate, leaving workers and communities on the hook when a company begins to flounder without warning. Twenty percent of companies acquired through private equity buyouts go bankrupt within ten years, accounting for forty percent of all U.S. bankruptcies and putting millions'' of workers jobs at risk. How did private equity firms become so good at making money for themselves and so damaging for the rest of society? Acclaimed journalist Megan Greenwell''s Bad Company tells the hidden story of private equity through the experiences of four American workers who watched as private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and a public housing organizer. In the tradition of deeply human reportage like Matthew Desmond''s Evicted , Megan Greenwell pulls back the curtain on shadowy multibillion dollar companies like Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, and KKR, telling a larger story about how private equity is reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream itself. Timely and masterfully told, Bad Company is a forceful rebuke of America''s most consequential, yet least understood economic forces. ...

About the author

Megan Greenwell is a journalist who has written or edited for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, WIRED, and ESPN. She is also the deputy director of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program, a workshop and college access initiative for students from low-income backgrounds. A California native, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their pug.

Summary

A timely work of singular reportage and a damning indictment of the private equity industry told through the stories of four American workers whose lives and communities were upended by the ruinous effects of private equity takeovers.
Private equity runs our country, yet few Americans have any idea how ingrained it is in their lives. Private equity controls our hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, voting machine manufacturers, local newspapers, nursing home operators, fertility clinics, and prisons. The industry even manages highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and owns a growing swath of commercial and residential real estate.
Private equity executives, meanwhile, are not only among the wealthiest people in American society, but have grown to become modern-day barons with outsized influence on our politics and legislation. CEOs of firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, KKR, and Apollo are rewarded with seats in the Senate and on the boards of the country’s most august institutions; meanwhile, entire communities are hollowed out as a result of their buyouts. Workers lose their jobs. Communities lose their institutions. Only private equity wins.
Acclaimed journalist Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company unearths the hidden story of private equity by examining the lives of four American workers that were devastated as private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and an affordable housing organizer. Taken together, their individual experiences also pull back the curtain on a much larger project: how private equity reshaped the American economy to serve its own interests, creating a new class of billionaires while stripping ordinary people of their livelihoods, their health care, their homes, and their sense of security.
In the tradition of deeply human reportage like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, Megan Greenwell pulls back the curtain on shadowy multibillion dollar private equity firms, telling a larger story about how private equity is reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream itself. Timely and masterfully told, Bad Company is a forceful rebuke of America’s most consequential, yet least understood economic forces.

Product details

• Authors: Megan Greenwell
• Publisher: Dey Street Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 10.06.2025
• EAN: 9780063299351
• ISBN: 978-0-06-329935-1
• No. of pages: 400
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Business administration; POLITICAL SCIENCE: General, ECONOMICS: GENERAL, POLITICAL SCIENCE: Public Policy / Economic Policy, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS: Corporate Finance / Private Equity, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS: Industries / Financial Services