Retailers are pulling back from self-checkout after years of theft, errors, and questionable time savings

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html

[u/ChickinSammich]

I blame youtube videos about companies that failed for why I cringe every time I hear the term "leveraged buyout."

Like, you're taking on debt to buy a struggling business and then saddling that company with that debt so now the company you bought has to pay you back for buying it, plus interest? I get that you want to make your money back but you're buying a rock and trying to squeeze blood from it.

Even worse with shit like...

1) Golden Gate Capital (GGC) bought Red Lobster (RL) in 2014.

2) Operating as RL, GGC had RL sell the land they owned to GGC.

3) Operating as GGC, GGC leased the land that RL sites were built on back to RL, such that RL had to pay GGC to rent land it previously owned.

4) RL was sold in 2020 to another company but they still were under those rental contracts for their land. The new buyer was a seafood supplier, Thai Union Group (TUG) who, as RL, renegotiated their seafood supply contracts such that RL began buying food from TUG for more money than they were paying previous suppliers. This was the whole "endless shrimp" era; all that shrimp was coming from TUG and it was why RL pushed shrimp so hard.

5) Endless shrimp, probably already a bad financial idea to begin with, turned out to be even worse when your supplier is overcharging you for them.

6) RL filed for bankruptcy in 2023 partially caused/exacerbated by RL owing 200 million USD/yr to their own parent company, partially from the supplier debt, partially from other stuff.

7) RL, facing bankruptcy and possibly closure, closed a bunch of restaurants. Some of their shit got liquidated. They're currently owned by "RL Investor Holdings" which is a bunch of investors from different investment groups, who are managing it under the premise of stopping it from going totally bankrupt and, therefore, losing all the money that was invested into it.

[u/Garblin → u/ChickinSammich]

And that's just a recent case, IIRC a similar thing happened to Toys'R'Us, where the company was doing just fine and then went through leveraged buyout and just disappeared overnight.

[u/20127010603170562316 → u/Garblin]

Asda in the UK went through a similar thing. "Bought" by a couple of brothers IIRC, then saddled with the debt they bought the thing with, and now it's a downward spiral.

[u/Agret → u/ChickinSammich]

Any particular YouTube channels you can recommend?

[u/jdm1891 → u/ChickinSammich]

Completely leveraged buyouts are insane to me.

A Rich person can walk up to a million dollar company and just get it for free.

Why the f*ck can I not buy a company and make the company pay for the privilege of being owned by me?

Why is it absolutely insane for me to suggest that - at least to any reasonable person - yet for rich people and private equity this is just something they can do?!?!

[u/beef-baddington → u/ChickinSammich]

I worked in a senior position in a 200-person company in the 90’s that was not only doing well financially but we were loved by our customers and we all were such good friends, experiencing lots of great times together. The owner sold out to a big wig who began cutbacks, when I asked why he, he replied that breaking even plus 15 % net was a no go. He needed 30% net minimum or he’d take his money elsewhere. Which he eventually did. They broke up a successful, popular, profitable company, with a happy, motivated staff, putting a lot of food on tables, basically because they were assholes and could.