@suitrats: PRIVATE EQUITY ATE ITS OWN | PARTY CITY 🎈 Party City sold your birthday balloons and Halloween costumes for nearly 40 years. 🎃 🐀 HOW THEY DID IT: 🐀 In 2012 Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL) bought most of Party City for 2.7 billion dollars. The deal left Party City with 1.5 billion dollars of debt. 🐀 In August 2013 the owners borrowed 350 million dollars more. 291 million went straight out to them as a dividend. 💸 THL's share was about 202 million. 🐀 In November 2019 THL's funds handed out their last Party City shares to investors. 🐀 Party City went bankrupt in January 2023 and again in December 2024. 🐀 On 20 December 2024 CEO Barry Litwin told the office staff it was their last day. No severance. 🎄 The shops closed in February. 🐀 In 2025 the brand name was sold for 20 million dollars. This year it came back on shelves inside Staples. 🛒 🗣️ Litwin told staff they had "done everything possible" to avoid it. THL declined to comment on the dividend. We found no THL statement on the closure. 🔺 This is an old rule. You pay your own debts. 🔺 They put the debt on the shop and took 291 million out of it. The staff got no severance. 🔺 We'd have to answer for that. They have lobbyists instead. 🔺 We see a broken system that our politicians don't want to see. 🔺 But we outnumber them. Every share wakes someone up. Enough of us and it changes. 🔥 🐀 THE PART NOBODY REPORTED: In 2015 Party City sold shares to the public. That money paid off the whole 350 million loan. In 2023 those public shareholders were wiped out. 🎯 📜 "...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money..." — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925 Read all full stories at suitrats.com SOURCES SEC filings 2013–2019 Buyouts Insider, 2013 Reuters · Bloomberg, 2012 CNN, Dec 2024 Fox Business, 2023 Fast Company, 2026 #suitrats #partycity #privateequity #halloween #corporategreed
