Thoma Bravo

Simmons Mattress

Seven PE owners, two bankruptcies. PE extracted $750M in profits while debt went from $164M to $1.3B. The company still exists as a shell.

Bankrupt TWICE (2009 and 2023). Debt went from $164M to $1.9B.

McAfee

Intel bought for $7.7B, spun 51% to TPG at $4.2B, IPO'd at $8.6B, taken private again at $14B by Thoma Bravo consortium. Four owners in 12 years. Each pass inflated the price. Consumer antivirus is a shrinking market competing with free built-in OS security.

Private under Thoma Bravo consortium at $14B. Consumer cybersecurity in a commoditizing market.

SolarWinds

Taken private at $4.5B by Thoma Bravo + Silver Lake, IPO'd in 2018. Then the Sunburst hack — one of the worst nation-state cyberattacks in history — hit while Silver Lake was still a major holder. Silver Lake dumped $315M in stock 6 days before public disclosure. SEC investigated the suspicious timing. The company whose IT monitoring tools were embedded in 18,000+ government and corporate networks became the attack vector.

Silver Lake sold ~$1B in stock days before the 2020 Russian hack disclosure. SEC investigated. Stock cratered 40%. Silver Lake slowly exiting.

iHeartMedia

The worst-timed LBO in history. Bain and THL took Clear Channel private for $24B at the absolute peak in 2008 with $20B+ in debt. Radio advertising immediately cratered. Ten years of interest payments bled the company dry while digital ate the business. Filed the largest radio bankruptcy in history in 2018 with $16B in debt. Emerged as iHeartMedia but the business model was already obsolete. Bain and THL collected $600M+ in advisory and management fees on a deal that destroyed $24B in value.

Public post-bankruptcy. Revenue declining as podcasts and streaming eat radio. Stock down 85% from 2019 re-listing.

Dunkin' Brands

Three PE firms (Bain/Carlyle/THL) bought Dunkin' for $2.4B in 2006, loaded it with debt, extracted dividends, and IPO'd in 2011. The franchise-heavy model (no company-owned stores) meant the debt was more manageable. Roark Capital's Inspire Brands took Dunkin' private again for $11.3B in 2020 at 18x EBITDA. Now part of a mega-restaurant platform. 5x price inflation over 14 years. The current $11.3B bet depends on perpetual franchise growth from a mature brand.

Private under Roark Capital's Inspire Brands at $11.3B. Now combined with Arby's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic, Jimmy John's.

Aramark

Five PE firms took Aramark private for $8.3B in 2007, loaded it with debt, extracted dividends, and re-IPO'd in 2014. The food service company's stock has gone essentially nowhere since the re-IPO. The PE firms made their money on management fees, transaction fees, and dividend recaps during the private period. Public market investors who bought at the re-IPO got a levered food service company with thin margins and massive debt. The PE owners were selling, not buying, at the re-IPO. That tells you everything.

Public. Stock essentially flat since re-IPO. PE made money on dividend recaps and fees. Public market investors got nothing.