PRL as a company was bought out???

[ElpacoSV]

Based on the Founder of PRL's LinkedIn, it looks like the company is called Aftermarket Performance Group (APG). Anytime I see "vertically integrated blah blah blah" I can't help but roll my eyes. It reeks of private equity.

My guess is Patrick sold the company with the promise of a payday and having to worry less about admin work, paperwork, etc. That is usually true (look at this snippet from APG about page: "Every division of APG has a huge range of autonomy that's backed by a central office team that handles purchasing, fulfillment, accounting, IT, human resources, and much more."), but the monkey paw curls while the company you built gets squeezed for all of the paper value possible (another about page snippet: "By combining robust wholesale distributing infrastructure with high-powered E-commerce sites and our own manufacturing, APG seeks to provide a high return on investment while producing excellent profits for each division in the group."). It's almost always bad for the consumer (us).

Meanwhile, the Private Equity company rolls up a bunch of companies in an industry, does the same thing to them, and then sells the portfolio. Rinse and repeat while the end product (usually) gets worse and worse.

Oh yeah, and you don't get your payday yet because your shares in the new company don't vest for 5+ years. So basically you have to work your ass off even harder while not calling the shots anymore if you want to see your payday happen. Notice how Patrick's LinkedIn job history goes from "President/Founder/Owner" of PRL to "Manager" and then to some random titles at Aftermarket Performance Group.

Also classic, he started a holding company. I'm nearly certain was made for the acquisition/tax purposes.

I've attached a banner image from their website – the irony is thick.

Anyway, I'm currently listening to a book called "These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America" so great timing! I'm clearly biased but don't get your hopes up about things getting better.

Sorry that's so bleak. I'm disappointed to say the least

Well, the beauty of this os that we have other optiojs out there. The best democracy is with you money. Stop buying from them, support other companies and if APG doesn't react too bad for them. Life goes on.

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[dockleryxk]

Well, the beauty of this os that we have other optiojs out there. The best democracy is with you money. Stop buying from them, support other companies and if APG doesn't react too bad for them. Life goes on.

Somewhat. As long as PRL produces quality it's no biggie. You'll have to excuse my rant... in other spheres there isn't another option. For example, a single private equity firm collects nearly 60% percent of the in-hospital private-insurance anesthesia revenue in Texas (source).

All that to say, my rant was by no means angry. I was attempting to explain what I saw and it's 100% my speculation and opinion based on seeing many similar situations