Comment by akiselev

The vast majority of the time, you don't hear about it at all. Leveraged buyouts and the monopolistic strategies like buying out all the private doctors or veterinarians in a region get all the negative press but they're a tiny fraction of private equity.

The big money is in really boring industries like mining/oil/resource extraction, power plants, infrastructure, construction, and other industries that are predictable and in high demand everywhere. PE firms often get the best deals because they thrive on those kinds of connections and can offer up large amounts of capital on favorable terms in exchange for first dibs. The "rich get richer" is their primary strategy and it works without minmaxing exploitation because that's a bottom feeder strategy, not one that can guarantee steady returns on tens of billions of dollars.