[arethuza]

Perhaps you could perhaps argue that PE companies play the same role in the commercial world as scavengers do in ecosystems - rip up the dead or nearly dead and try and extract value from it.

Not something that I could do, or even admire, but capitalism is much about failure as it is about success.

[fireflash38]

Isn't that the problem here? It seems like Dick Smith was already well on the way to failure, but Anchorage comes in and props it up like it's succeeding enough to cash in on a stock offering.