A work of reportage and an indictment of the private equity industry told through the stories of four American workers whose lives and communities were upended by the effects of private equity takeovers.
Greenwell offers stories that are textured, not one-note tales of woe ... Bad Company details how clichéd abstractions like 'consolidation' and 'efficiency' have given cover to real betrayals. The people in this book wanted only to raise their families and contribute to their communities. Instead they were unwittingly drawn into an opaque system of financial extraction and debt peonage, for which no amount of hard work was ever enough.
A deeply reported, briskly paced and highly disturbing account ... Greenwell has written an essential guide to an industry that operates largely in the shadows ... Despite her immersion in this predatory world, she remains surprisingly optimistic.
Detailed ... It’s in these intimate portraits that the book truly shines. Though never stated outright, the experiences of Greenwell’s subjects act as a powerful foil to a certain kind of managerial thinking that is implicit at the heart of private equity’s pitch.
