TPG Inc.

Petco

$600M → $1B → $1.8B → $4.6B. Four ownership cycles. Three IPOs. Each time more debt.

Trading well below IPO levels. Same business, exponentially more leverage.

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.

J.Crew

TPG and Leonard Green took J.Crew private for $3B in 2011 with $1.6B in debt. Added more debt to fund Madewell. Creative direction suffered as PE demanded margin extraction. Couldn't invest in stores or brand. Filed Chapter 11 in May 2020 — the first major retailer to fall during COVID. Debt-to-equity swap wiped out TPG/LGP. Anchorage Capital and GSO took over. The iconic American brand reduced to a PE shell game. TPG and Leonard Green collected $124M in fees on a deal that destroyed $3B.

Emerged from bankruptcy 2020. Third PE cycle underway. Fraction of former scale.

Neiman Marcus

TPG/Warburg bought Neiman for $5.1B in 2005, piled on debt, sold to Ares/CDPQ for $6B in 2013 — the ultimate hot potato pass. Ares/CDPQ added MORE debt and extracted a $500M dividend. When luxury spending softened, $5B in debt was unsurvivable. Filed Chapter 11 in 2020. Emerged only to be merged into 'Saks Global,' which is itself now running out of cash. Three PE ownership cycles, one bankruptcy, and the debt mountain only grows.

Merged into 'Saks Global' with HBC/Brookfield (2025). Cash crisis. Vendors demanding COD.

Energy Future Holdings (TXU)

The single largest leveraged buyout in history at the time — $45B to take TXU private. KKR, TPG, and Goldman bet that natural gas prices would stay high. Instead, the shale revolution cratered gas prices by 70%. With $40B+ in debt, the company couldn't survive even modest commodity declines. Filed the largest PE-backed bankruptcy ever in 2014 with $49.7B in liabilities. KKR and TPG each lost $4B+. Goldman lost $1B+. Advisory banks still collected $300M in fees on the deal. The bet was wrong on day one.

Bankrupt April 2014. Largest PE-backed bankruptcy in HISTORY at $49.7B in liabilities.

Caesars Entertainment (Harrah's)

Apollo and TPG bought Harrah's for $30.7B in 2008 — the largest casino LBO ever — with $24B in debt. When the financial crisis crushed Las Vegas, the debt was unsurvivable. Apollo structured a complex OpCo/PropCo split to protect some assets. The operating company filed the largest hospitality bankruptcy in history in 2015. Creditors accused Apollo of 'looting' the company through intercompany transactions. Apollo and TPG collected $1.2B+ in fees and dividends while investors lost everything. Apollo eventually made money on the PropCo side. The workers and creditors did not.

Merged with Eldorado. Apollo and TPG lost billions but collected $1.2B in fees and dividends before bankruptcy.

Freescale Semiconductor

Four of the world's largest PE firms teamed up to buy Freescale for $17.6B in 2006 — the largest tech LBO at the time. Loaded with $12B in debt on a cyclical semiconductor business. The 2008 crisis crushed chip demand. Near-bankruptcy in 2009, survived through debt exchanges. Sold to NXP in 2015 for $11.8B — a $5.8B loss from the LBO price. The consortium collected hundreds of millions in fees while the business was strangled by interest payments. Semiconductors need massive R&D investment; PE gave it massive debt service instead.

Absorbed into NXP at $11.8B — 33% below the $17.6B LBO price. Four PE firms lost billions.

SunGard Data Systems

SEVEN PE firms needed to buy SunGard for $11.3B. The largest PE club deal by number of sponsors. Loaded with $7.2B in debt. Cloud computing disrupted the on-premise financial software model, and the company couldn't invest in technology under the debt load. Sold piecemeal — FIS acquired the financial services unit for $9.1B (below LBO price), other divisions sold or shuttered. When seven of the world's smartest firms all agree on a deal and still lose money, maybe the model is the problem.

Effectively dismantled. Sold to FIS in 2015 for $9.1B — 20% below LBO price. PE consortium lost billions.

Avaya Holdings

TPG and Silver Lake bought Avaya for $8.2B in 2007, loading $6.2B in debt onto a telecom equipment company in structural decline. Cloud communications (Zoom, Teams, RingCentral) was eating the legacy business. Filed Chapter 11 in 2017, emerged with reduced debt. Filed AGAIN in 2023 — the exact same problem, just a slightly smaller debt load and an even more disrupted industry. Two bankruptcies, $8.2B in value destroyed. TPG and Silver Lake learned nothing from the first bankruptcy.

Bankrupt TWICE (2017, 2023). Two PE-driven bankruptcies in six years. Brand destroyed.

Cirque du Soleil

TPG led a consortium to buy Cirque du Soleil for $1.5B in 2015. Loaded the live entertainment company with debt. When COVID shut down all live performances in March 2020, Cirque had zero revenue and massive debt service. Filed Chapter 11, laying off 3,480 employees (95% of workforce) — with $0 in severance. TPG lost its equity. Catalyst Capital and new investors bought the company for pennies. The founder's legacy — 36 years of building the world's most iconic circus — destroyed by five years of PE leverage. Revenue-dependent businesses and high leverage don't mix. COVID was the trigger, but the debt was the bullet.

Emerged from bankruptcy 2020. Scaled back dramatically. Former employees lost severance. TPG lost its equity.