"Private equity firms specialize in two things: playing with debt and fixing up companies with basic operational improvements. In stable industries, that combo may work just fine. But in ones that are facing fundamental upheaval, it can be a disaster. Small moves like cutting costs won’t save a business. And huge debt loads make it hard to take more dramatic steps that might."

Jordan Weissmann, a senior business and economics correspondent for Slate, writing recently on the website in the report “Why private equity keeps wrecking retail chains like Fairway [supermarkets].”