Democrats Renew Efforts To End Private Equity Looting, PE 💸 [View all]

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Photo: Sen. Eliz. Warren (D-Mass.) speaks at a press conference about Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre refusal to comply with a subpoena to testify to the Senate on Sept 5. 24.
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- 'Democrats Renew Effort to End Private Equity Looting,' "Union-busting, pollution, & bankruptcy aren't side effects of the private equity model: They are the model," said one campaigner backing the bill. "It's a smash and grab, plain & simple." Common Dreams, Oct., 10, 2024. Ed.
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Less than a month away from the U.S. general election, over a dozen congressional Democrats on Thursday renewed their fight to "fundamentally reform the private equity industry" with a bill that Rep. Mark Pocan said "will finally hold these predatory firms accountable and protect workers from being plundered by corporate greed."

"It's long past time for billionaires and big corporations to stop gambling with hardworking Americans' and their communities' assets in service of corporate greed," declared Pocan (D-Wis.), who is leading the Stop Wall Street Looting Act with Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

"In Wisconsin, we've seen what happens when private equity firms like Sun Capital raid companies for their wealth and leave workers and communities to pick up the pieces," he noted. "When Sun Capital took over Shopko—a Wisconsin-based retail chain that had stood strong for more than 50 years—they drained it dry, buried it in debt, pushed it into bankruptcy, and abandoned roughly 14,000 workers."

"Private equity takeovers are legal looting that make a handful of Wall Street executives very rich while costing thousands of people their jobs, putting valuable companies out of ­business, and in the case of healthcare, is literally a matter of life and death." Warren's state is also dealing with fallout from the industry. As The Boston Globe reported Thursday, the legislation is "designed to rein in the growing power of private equity firms and limit the sort of leveraged buyout deals that led to the crisis at Steward Health Care...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/democrats-renew-effort-to-end-private-equity-looting

- Private Equity's Ruthless Takeover of the Last Affordable Housing in America, (Sept. 2024)