How Private Equity Turns Healthy Companies Into Corpses

Every healthy company private equity touches follows the same script: acquire it, bury it in debt, strip the assets, and exit rich — leaving a corpse behind. This is the playbook, decision by fatal decision. Private equity firms don't buy companies to build them. They buy them to extract them. Using a leveraged buyout, the target company is made to borrow the money used to purchase itself — then that debt becomes the weapon that kills it. In this documentary we break down how private equity works using the three fatal decisions that turn a profitable business into a bankruptcy filing: 1. THE DEBT LOAD — the leveraged buyout that saddles a healthy company with debt it never asked for. 2. THE ASSET STRIP — real estate sold, brands mortgaged, pensions raided, dividends recapped straight to the fund. 3. THE EXIT — the firm walks away richer while the company is sold for parts. This is the mechanism behind some of the most infamous corporate collapses of the last two decades — and it's still running today. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 — The Open 0:25 — The Mechanism: How The Formula Works 3:46 — Case Study 1: Toys R Us 6:08 — Case Study 2: Sears 8:54 — Case Study 3: The Assembly Line 11:09 — The Defense 12:48 — The Ruins 14:16 — The Send-Off ▶️ WATCH THE PRIVATE EQUITY SERIES Private Equity Kill List:    • Private Equity Kill List   ▶️ WATCH NEXT Sears: How One Spreadsheet Destroyed a $50B Giant    • Sears: How One Spreadsheet Destroyed a $50...   🔔 Subscribe to Sector Down for the untold stories behind billion-dollar collapses. Every empire ends. Every sector collapses. #PrivateEquity #CorporateCollapse #LeveragedBuyout