This is a really good thread. But I'd offer a slightly different lesson: the LBO model of trimming fat, running lean, and exiting with a fat profit worked in 1985, when there were a lot of companies with extremely flabby operations.
Competition was weaker, and weak shareholder controls meant that managers were running things for their own benefit (often in cooperation with unions). Lavish perks, not-too-onerous workdays. Many industries were sufficiently consolidated for this to work.
Foreign competition, tech disruption, and adoption of Japanese management practices means that these days, there's not so much fat around. If the company's in disarray, it's because their industry changed fundamentally.
What's left is often a vulture model: take it over, strip the carcass, leave the bones.
Retail just collapsed faster than the vultures could feast, leaving everyone with nothing.
Retail just collapsed faster than the vultures could feast, leaving everyone with nothing.
