>>7968211>but those companies would have died years earlier had Bain not swooped in to put them on life supportBut that's wrong.
KB in 1998 grew its revenue to its highest point to 1.6 billion dollars and in 1999 operating income (profits) was 51% higher than in 1998.
From: Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street
Chapter excerpt should show up through google books.
Neither TRU nor KB were troubled businesses. They were all selling billions of dollars worth of toys every year and were highly profitable. They only sought "help" from companies like Bain to grow their companies, in order to compete with stores like amazon and Walmart eating up their share of the toy markets.
KB had previously been investing in setting up their own webstore in order to expand sales, but companies like Bain had no idea what hiring teenagers to type at computers had anything to do with mall sales and pretty much dumped the company a few years later, but not before making KB take out a loan to pay off the banks Bain owed money to and to also pay the salaries.
Like TRU, Bain saddling them with debt made them unable to invest in themselves to grow anything. Less money for internet integration, stores grow uglier as they can't update their looks, etc etc etc.
