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The Carlyle Group purchased discounted debt in British carpet maker Brintons and then forced the family owned firm into a prepackaged bankruptcy.
It sold discounted debt in IRobot, the maker of Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, to Santrum Hong Kong Co., Limited (“Santrum”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenzhen PICEA Robotics Co., Ltd. Bloomberg reported Carlyle wrote down that debt for over a $100 million loss.
PICEA manufactures the Roomba for IRobot. This is the second deal where Carlyle played a role in sending a U.S. based company to Chinese firm ownership.
How many times did Carlyle acquire an affiliate via debt cram-down after Bintons? Carlyle backdoored the Barclay family with its debt takeover play at the Very Group. They did that with Mrs. Field's as well.
When private credit goes bad, there is a new owner. Employees frequently lose if that's a private equity firm. Carlyle dumped Brintons pension on the public as it snatched the firm from its founding family.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (Blue Team) noted how private equity "guts everything." They comprise most of the U.S. economy, in terms of corporate ownership. Elected officials of both political stripes have catered to the PEU boys for decades.
Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren. Increasingly, more are one.
