[financetechbro]

Did you know that there are more PE firms in the US than there are McDonalds?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/now-more-pe-funds-mcdonald-12...

So while PE firms are not inherently “vulture” like, I would argue that the increasing number of firms fighting over the same number of assets to squeeze out returns (hopefully) above market returns leads to behavior that can be considered “vulture” like. For context, part of my work is to sell assets to PE firms

[Ekaros]

Is this some sort of shell game? Is there some benefit from artificially creating these firms to hold the assets? As I can't think there is enough demand to fully staff that amount of firms with all the full-time workers it would need.

[financetechbro]

So most PE firms probably have around 5-15 employees. They don’t require too much manpower unless they’re trying to close a lot of deals. The main tasks are sourcing the asset, conducting diligence, negotiating terms, and supporting the asset post investment. This can all be done with an analyst, an associate, a VP, and a Partner/MD, each focusing on things from networking/relationship building to making financial models and other adhoc work.

I think PE just become a very popular way for wall street grads and MBA types to make a decent living without necessarily having to be a good investor (PE funds don’t present their full returns until 10+ after the fund has closed).

[y0eswddl]

Almost certainly some kind of shell game - it seems many major PE companies own each other and smaller ones.

I'd actually be very interested to see if anyone ever managed to break down who actually owns what