When Keyana Sapp, 31, went shopping for a new backpack, the brands he remembered as a kid were just not the same.
He researched the companies, from North Face to JanSport and Eastpak, and soon realized they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave of acquisitions in the 2000s. After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked up traction, he started looking at other types of consumer goods – cookware, shoes, tools, clothing.
“It seems like that was a story that just repeated in every industry,” Sapp told the Guardian.
Company becomes successful with a reputation for quality ----> equity firm buys company ----> proceeds to cut any cost they think they can, starting with quality ----> people wise up and start avoiding brand ----> do it all again with the next company. They’ve been doing this for decades and they’ve gotten to most companies.
Its not just private equity, its consolidation, a nasty little gremlin that people often overlook.
When you’ve bought all the competition, theres no reason to keep innovating to make superior products, because theres no one left to be superior too.
Exactly
The old corporate raiders, now working under the name of private equity.