free money or legal thievery using debt as a six shooter

private equity firms used highly leveraged debt
to buy a name brand firm
plunge that company into debt
pay the private equity partners huge sums for ruining, i mean running the company
meanwhile wall street got big bucks for securitizing the deal
and then before the company seemed too ravaged and damaged
the company is sold to another private equity firm
with more debt, fees paid to wall street and another round of looting
from the new york times

"Simmons says it will soon file for bankruptcy protection, as part of an agreement by its current owners to sell the company — the seventh time it has been sold in a little more than two decades — all after being owned for short periods by a parade of different investment groups, known as private equity firms, which try to buy undervalued companies, mostly with borrowed money.

For many of the company’s investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The company’s downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees — more than one-quarter of the work force — laid off last year.

But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the company’s fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html