Pirate Equity: How Wall Street Firms are Pillaging American Retail

For decades, Wall Street firms have been driving economic inequality in our country, threatening working people’s livelihoods, and destabilizing local economies. Today, private equity firms owncompanies that employ more than 5.8 million Americans.

In the last decade alone, private equity firms and hedge funds have made substantial controlling investments in over 80 major retail companies, which has drastically impacted the sector. Given that private equity-owned companies are twice as likely to go bankrupt as public companies, it is unsurprising that 10 out of the 14 largest retail chain bankruptcies since 2012 were at private equity-acquired chains.

This original analysis reveals that in the last 10 years, a staggering 597,000 people working at retail companies owned by private equity firms and hedge funds have lost their jobs. An estimated additional 728,000 indirect jobs have been lost at suppliers and local businesses, meaning Wall Street’s gamble on retail has led to more than 1.3 million job losses in total. Download the report to learn more.