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Comment by ekropotin

1 day ago

I wish there were some kind of public database that allowed easy lookup of whether a given company is owned by a private equity firm.

7 comments

ekropotin

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neilv  1 day ago

It should be integrated with the ways that people find those businesses, including maps, Web search, and "AI chat".

MarkusAllen  12 hours ago

This exists partially - you can often find it by searching "[company name] acquired by" + checking the acquiring firm.

  The bigger problem: PE firms deliberately obscure ownership through multiple holding companies. It's part of the strategy.

  Example with autism centers:
  - PE firm creates "AutismCare Holdings LLC"
  - That entity owns 500 centers
  - Each center keeps its local brand name
  - Parents have no idea they're paying a PE-optimized operation

  The glossary I made includes terms like "Portfolio Company" and "Management Company" that explain this structure:
  https://founderstowne.com/extraction-terms.html

  A database would be valuable, but PE firms would just add more shell companies. The obfuscation is intentional.

tartoran  1 day ago

I’d happily pay for a tool that lets me opt out of being slowly nickel-and-dimed by entities optimized for short-term yield. This feels like infrastructure: a small amount of collective effort that gives individuals leverage again. Visibility is the lever. And it could be done, it's just more organizing and involvement in local politics. The information already exists, it’s just effectively invisible, and a small translation layer could collapse it into a one-second answer, letting people avoid operators with a predictable extractive playbook, with the only real challenge being the constant, boring maintenance in an environment designed for churn and opacity. Eventually this should revolve around organizing and politics to make a difference.

  • MarkusAllen  12 hours ago

    The challenge: these entities are designed to be hard to identify until after you're locked in.

      With autism centers specifically:
  - They keep the local brand name after acquisition
  - By the time you realize service quality dropped, your kid is mid-treatment
  - Long waitlists at other centers make switching costly

  The best "opt-out tool" is learning to recognize the patterns before signing up. Questions to ask:
  - Was this recently acquired?
  - Do therapists mention high turnover?
  - Are there unexplained price increases?

  I made a glossary of the terminology these firms use: https://founderstowne.com/extraction-terms.html

  Understanding terms like "Roll-Up" and "Cost Optimization" helps you pattern-match before you're stuck.

    • tartoran  11 hours ago

      Identifying them at least it's a better thing than not. The lock-in challenge can be solved too, also through organizing, activism and politics.