[tvladeck]

it doesn't make internal investment impossible. it just changes the pockets it comes out of. well, actually it doesn't even do that, because either way it would be coming out of the cash owned by the PE shops, whether it sits on the books of the company or has been paid out to its owners. they can always decide to invest more into initiatives that show a promising return. the issue here is not the structure, it's rather that the owners of these shops made mistakes, which will happen. but the incentives are not misaligned.

[yyyk]

Maybe internal investment being 'impossible' is too strong a word, but practically it's very unlikely after the company has been taken over and is piling debt.

"either way it would be coming out of the cash owned by the PE shops". They don't have to invest you know. After all, the company is now unprofitable. Obviously it's just inefficient. Why give money to an inefficient company from your core profitable business, when you can break the company up and use the profit from looting it in your core profitable business which you're good at?

It makes much more sense for PE finance to siphon funds for use in a field they have expertise in (more finance) than try to manage companies in various fields (like retail) they're so not expert on, especially when the companies are in the debt.