So I take it we aren’t allowed to talk about Helglstrand video here?

No - that is not what Equibrit means.

“In Plunder , Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Ballou vividly illustrates how many private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and mobile-home parks, among other businesses, using little of their own money to do it and avoiding debt and liability for their actions. Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them.”

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No - that is not what Equibrit means. Read the synopsis of the linked book.

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We’re going through the PE nightmare right now with a hospital chain in Massachusetts. It’s 9 hospitals that mostly serve Medicare and Medicaid patients. The hospitals are short of everything - staff, surgical instruments, wound dressings, I could on. Many of the doctors are gone too (but at least one brave doctor has been buying surgical instruments for his patients. A woman bled to death after giving birth because they lacked an essential tool to stop massive bleeds. The woman was transfered to another hospital but by the time she got there, it was too late.

The PE company in this mess is or was named Cerberus…

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Thanks for clarifying. And fyi, my comments dont really dispute the info you attached. My only point was its not easy to get $ out once they are invested by the PE company.

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Ceberus was the Hound of Hades.

Seems fitting.

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The money is not invested by the PE outfit, it is raised from bank loans and secured by the company’s assets. Hence the bankruptcy when those funds have been “used”.

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I worked in Private equity. PE firms have funds. Those funds provide the equity invested in buyouts. There is also usually debt invested. The debt amount is secured from a bank or perhaps another private equity group (specializing in mezzanine financing- usually for higher risk situations)and based on the cash flow from the business (or secured by the business assets). But PE firms do in fact invest funds into the purchases of businesses. The business cash flow and usually a working capital line of credit are what keep the businesses going. This applies to mature companies and not start ups which receive investments from Venture Capitalists. While VCs are a type of Private Equity investor, the scenario I am speaking of is for later stage Private equity investors as I believe that is more relevant to this conversation.

If the business faces a cash flow shortage, PE funds may invest further if they think they can turn it around, sell if they can stop the hemorrhage or file for bankruptcy (7 or 11). They own a portfolio of businesses and usually some are losers and some are winners but they average out making money.

I don’t know if the businesses in question here have lost enough revenue for it to impact their value or cash flow.

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Openly nepotising, with audience and all. If Isabell had a sound sense of her crucial function as a role model, she would chose distance as quiet judgment, not paired appearances. But she is worried, too, must be.

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Good I’m glad she’s worried.

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We’re facing a hospital crisis in Massachusetts thanks to private equity. 9 hospitals on the verge of closing while the head guy parties in his $40M and $15M yachts… My general impression of PE is that it milks the money out of businesses and then bankruptcy them.

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The way PE firms make money is by selling the businesses for more than they acquired them for. Put another way, by adding value to the business. There are some financial engineering strategies using leverage to make money which basically is still increasing the equity value of the business.

Often cutting expenses to enhance cash flow is one way they add value. I have never seen an actual stream of money flowing from the acquired company to the PE firm. so they don’t milk money out of the business. likely the hospitals were not very profitable so they stripped them down, and perhaps they couldn’t make it. I think we can discuss the morality of hospitals being run as profit centers separately.

I’m just being clear on money flows; the company doesn’t pay the PE firm, but the PE firm often makes cuts and decisions that are rough to try to improve profitability. Sometimes it backfires. Bankruptcy isn’t usually profitable, but it can be the optimal recovery of the assets. Secured debtholders are first in line to gain money from the sale of assets. there is a process to pay various levels of debtholders. The equity holders (PE firms) get the last of the money and usually if there is enough to give the PE firm any money, they wouldn’t file bankruptcy in the first place. So bankruptcy itself is rarely profitable, but a best worst case type of thing.

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The Private Equity Hospital Tracker shows only 1 hospital in MA owned by PE.

Private Equity Stakeholder has more info

OK … As happens with PE, “assets” get bought and sold in complicated ways that are mostly focused on making as much profit as possible for the PE company.

Here is a timeline:
https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/01/31/steward-health-care-timeline

As of 2020ish, the private equity firm Cerberus sold its controlling interest in the hospital group to a doctors group that also owned part of the hospital group. So yes – as of now there is no PE ownership of these hospitals, but the strategy of buying an underperforming asset, stripping anything valuable and piling on the debt, and selling what is left of it has really, really hurt eastern Massachusetts.

The hospitals have stopped paying their vendors and are gradually going to disappear. In the meantime patients are getting very poor care. The other hospitals in the area cannot absorb all the patients from the Steward hospitals.

The CEO is no longer welcome in “polite society” in Boston.

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Isable Werth speaks:

They are quite sure they are above the rules
The website Eurodressage.com reported that on May 30 at the Wiesbaden CDI in Germany, Werth’s small tour horse, Whisper, tested positive for fluphenazin . The drug is normally used as an antipsychotic for humans with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but one of its side effects is sedation.23 June 2009

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She has now issued a statement and doubled down on her support of AH. (sort of a "see no evil/hear no evil/speak no evil lecture).

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Thanks. Can you point us to it?

Found it, here is the link:

And here is a plain copy of the text:

Statement

There is a lot of discussion going on at the moment, between horse lovers, riders and animal welfare activists. There have been very ugly pictures, which need consequences. I am however worried, that it is a controversy that divides us, although actually there is one thing that combines us and that is the love of horses. That is why we should sort a few things out.

It is good that we set ourselves a high bar. I try, however, not to make quick judgements of events from afar that I have not witnessed personally. In the past 35 years, I have won many medals and have brought fantastic horses into the sport. After their careers they have spent many years and still spend their time with me as pensioners. However, I have also made many unintentional mistakes on the way and I try very hard, through personal development and good training to keep these mistakes to a minimum. Those who know their boundaries, have more humility when criticizing others.

I went to Andreas Helgstrand’s yard for the first time four year ago. Thanks to Madeleine Winter-Schulze, Joshua then came to me. Since then I have been there many times. During these visits, I have never seen any form of incorrect riding or any form of incorrect behaviour. Actually, the opposite is the case. In the mean time my students and I have bought quite a few horses from him, that are all healthy and some are already successful in sport. We are very happy with all of them.

I was also surprised about the published scenes and the statements made by former employees of Helgstrand Dressage. Although this did not happen at the establishment where Andreas Helgstrand trains himself, it remains his responsibility. I have spoken with him openly and in depth about this. There is however one thing that needs our attention: he was not pictured on any of the horses.

It was a personal and not a financial decision to give a clinic at Helgstrand’s establishment in Wellington U.S.A. While I was there I taught a few good horses with their riders and I rode one horse The video of this has been seen and commented on by some of you: No, I did not use the so called “Rollkur” nor did the horse suffer in any way. I was just not able to keep the hose, during the first time I had ridden him, properly in front of my aids and in front of the vertical. His slightly short neck did not help the situation.

At the same time as this video was being shown, a ten year video of Bella Rose also surfaced. Bella is now 20 years old and is enjoying her pension with me. Her son is also happily growing up with us. Perhaps she will, which last year was not the case which I quite understand, like to get pregnant again this year?

Some of you have known for a long time that the o-tone on the old video does not belong to the pictures that are shown. A chance to criticize this film was not given to me. The WDR were ordered by the court to remove this video from circulation because the wrong impression was made. This court order is still in place for anybody publicizing it.

It is important to me, that in the future we can have an honest and fair discussion, which will show the difference between bad riding and animal abuse. Mistakes in riding however should and must be discussed - this is the core of my sport and the prerequisite for the improvement of the horse and rider. But please, it has to be factual, objective and fair.

This is not so for cases like Cesar Parra, these are - as has already happened - a matter for public prosecution.

– Isabell Werth

It seems none of these big names can come right out and state firmly that they have no stomach for abuse under any circumstances. Who do you think gives the training orders at Helgstrand? She is surprised that employees came forward? I am sure the PTB there make very sure no “outsiders” witness any “training” sessions. The fact that she gave the clinic at Helgstrand’s says volumes. The horses deserve so much better.

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This happened 14 years ago. Her defense was that the drug was administered to the horse by her vet to treat an ongoing medical issue. The FEI suspended her for 6 months. Believe her story or not. It doesn’t matter.

What does it have to do with her current statement about horse abuse, CP, and Helgestrand ?

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