Private equity firms are not only buying single family homes to corner the rental
market, they're also buying up pet stores and veterinary clinics.
And they're doing it to maximize their profits,
which means they're cutting back on costs quite a bit.
Now, I'm gonna give you one example.
Back in 2015, BC Partners, which is a private equity firm,
purchased PetSmart, and the results have been disastrous.
But that is not what they said going into it.
In fact, they said their goal was to improve corporate efficiency,
and by that they meant severely understaffing their stores and
providing insufficient training.
Remember, they're trying to cut back on costs to maximize profits.
With too few employees to transport animals that died in the stores,
carcasses allegedly piled up in PetSmart freezers across the country.
So Vice did a pretty extensive report on this, and
it is difficult to read, even more difficult to share with you as
someone who really loves animals and especially loves my dog.
But I want to give you more details in just a moment before I do, Cenk,
why do we have a government that allows private equity to destroy everything we
have in life?
>> And it's not just the government, I don't know what schmucks do
businesses with these guys, because they do the same trick every time.
Improved corporate efficiency means cut jobs, cut costs, period,
99% of the time, okay?
So if you hear anyone telling you in a giant corporation that they're about to
improve efficiency, that means you have a good chance of getting fired, okay?
But as we just explained in the story about Elon Musk and Twitter, it turns out
you can't fire all your employees because you need people to run things.
And if they don't run things, things start to fall apart.
And so in the case of PetSmart, when things fall apart,
you have the disaster that you're about to hear.
But then they will then take those companies that they just sucked all
the money out of and then dump it on some idiot who's like, yeah,
I think I'll buy something from private equity.
I hear they're really efficient.
Well, they hand it off to you when it's about to fall apart at the seams.
And then every time they get screwed and every time they're like, golly, gee,
I don't know how that happened.
Pay attention, Jesus Christ, Ana, do you want me to read these quotes?
>> No, I'll read them, it's fine.
Let's get to some of the allegations and
the former employees making the allegations.
So let's start with Lea Romo-Serrano, between 2019 and
2021,Lea Romo-Serrano, a 24 year old former PetSmart employee in Tennessee,
estimates that she was asked at least 30 times to dispose
of dead animals on her own time by her supervisors.
She said she would have to throw away hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, mice,
bearded dragons, geckos, and snakes, and when we say snakes,
we're referring to the actual animal not the private equity guys,
because the coolers in her store were overflowing with dead animals.
Okay.
>> Hey, but they cut cost.
>> Some of the animals had been returned to the store by their owners.
Others had arrived dead on trucks in the winter, and
others didn't get necessary veterinary care, she said.
Adding, quote, sometimes I was doing it weekly because
we didn't have staff to take a vet trip to properly dispose of them, so
I was instructed to dispose of them myself.
In one case, an employee said that dead animals had been sitting
in the freezer for ten months.
Ten months.
But it's not just the horrifying amount of animal deaths,
there are other details in this Vice report that are just insane.
According to several former employees,
some PetSmart stores used to give bonuses to managers who kept veterinary costs low.
>> Of course, guys,
this is what we've been telling you about every part of our economy.
So we made a massive mistake in America.
We allowed corporations with no checks, no balances, no restrictions at all.
And we allowed those corporations to also donate to politicians.
So now we're screwed because they own the government and
they own the economy, and their only code is maximize profit.
So don't get surprised by these stories, like I tell you about the shootings.
Don't get surprised when one happens near you because they're happening everywhere,
well, you think it's not going to happen to you?
No. Everyone has a gun.
There's 20 million assault weapons.
A mass shooting is going to happen near you.
>> But don't worry.
Yeah, but don't worry, crime isn't as bad as it was in the 1990s, Cenk.
>> Yeah, I hear you.
And so in companies, they're gonna do this to every company.
They're gonna cut costs so that they can maximize every single red cent,
that's their job.
So they're gonna cut more employees, they're gonna cut your wages, and
then they're gonna have situations, where I got the freezers full of dead pets.
I'm cutting costs.
What am I gonna do?
>> We haven't even-. >> Got to dump them somewhere on your
off time.
>> Believe it or not, we haven't even gotten to the worst part, right?
Because by the way, I should note, PetSmart of course,
denies all of this, and they claim that the health and
well-being of their associates, customers and pets is their top priority.
Sure, you're bought out by private equity firms, I seriously question that.
Because, again, the whole point,
private equity isn't gonna buy pet stores out of the kindness of their heart.
They're gonna buy the pet stores because they see it as an investment.
They see it as an opportunity to maximize profits by
cutting the costs of the company they're acquiring.
That is exactly what happened here.
So please spare me the nonsense about how, my God,
the health and the safety of our employees and the animals is a top concern.
Top concern.
The top concern for private equity is profit, period, okay?
Don't insult our intelligence.
Let's now move on to the vets, the veterinary clinics that are being
purchased by private equity firms as well, which is a complete nutter disaster, okay?
So there are logical reasons why private equity firms are attracted to vets.
For one, the industry is huge and growing.
There are over 90 million American households that have pets currently, okay?
So there's a big money making opportunity for private equity here.
And here's another issue, unlike in human health care,
the nation writes, customers tend to pay out of pocket for health care for
their animals rather than through insurers.
This gives private equity firms cash,
unmediated through third parties with which to pay
down the debts they often use to buy practices, okay?
So understand that, they don't have to deal with getting things authorized.
They don't have to deal with insurance companies.
Here's your pet, your pet is gonna die, you don't want your pet to die, right?
So people are gonna pay thousands of dollars in some cases to
ensure their pet makes it.
Okay.
All right, additionally, the salaries for these vets get cut.
They're lower than those of human health professionals, so
they see that as an upside as well, right?
We don't have to deal with high pay associated
with doctors because veterinarians get paid less.
And so they're scooping up these clinics fast.
Let me just give you a few more details, Cenk.
So since 2017, private equity firms have spent $45 billion on the industry.
About a quarter of general veterinary practices are now owned by large
corporations, including private equity firms, while about three-quarters
of specialty practices like emergency and surgery care are as well.
>> So look, how do they pick industries?
How do they decide where to go?
Well, they do exhaustive analysis, right?
These private equity companies, there's a lot you can say about them, but
they're not dummies.
They do their math, they do their homework.
Part of the reason they're buying up all the homes now is because they
did the math on them.
They're like, why do we want the average American to accumulate wealth?
Why don't we accumulate the wealth and then make them rent it from us?
And that makes, if you just cares about dollars and cents,
that makes a lot of sense.
That's why they're buying up all the homes, right?
So now we're all screwed.
That we've talked about that a lot.
In this case, they see the veterinarians and
they go, there's an inefficiency there.
There's two inefficiencies there.
Number one, since they're not doctors, we could actually either lower their pay or
keep their pay where it is for a long, long time and not increase it very much.
So we have efficiencies in how little we pay them.
And then secondarily, since people love their pets,
that your veterinarian around the corner, he usually loves animals,
and so he or she wants to make sure your puppy doesn't die, etc, etc.
And they're normal human beings, and they act like human beings, but
when a giant private equity company owns them, they no longer have that option.
They must charge the maximum because you have to maximize profits.
So they're like, well, if you like fluffy, well, you were paying 500 before for
that surgery, but we think you'll pay 1500 now.
>> Like, I'll give you an example.
The vet that I take charlie to is just a wonderful person, and I'm so
grateful that I found him.
And I remember charlie had an allergic reaction, he tends to get allergies where
he's like he gets hotspots and everything once a year.
And one year it was particularly bad, I took the dog to the vet that I trust.
They givecCharlie medication that he did not react well to.
I take Charlie back to the vet, and he was having, like, gastrointestinal issues,
I'll just put it that way.
A reaction to that medication, and he was dehydrated, he needed treatment.
The vet is, don't worry about it put your wallet away, I'm going to take care of it.
And they treated charlie, he did great after that, but
the idea that that treatment would happen for free,
for a vet that has been bought out by a private equity firm-.
>> No, they literally could not do that.
>> That would never happen, right?
>> They could get fired.
They just say they cannot do that.
>> Negotiating the price of treatment would never happen because at the end of
the day,
the private equity firm that bought these clinics want to maximize their profits.
That is the issue.
It takes the humanity completely out of the equation.
>> That's what they mean when they say, efficiencies,
we will be more efficient and maximize profit than these human beings over here.
These vets who care about the animals they're inefficient,
they could get a lot more.
Look, guys, a lot of it is sophisticated, and it's on spreadsheets, etc, etc.
But what does it come down to?
If we're being honest about it, it basically comes down to,
we're gonna hold your pets hostages.
And if you don't give us every nickel that we think we can squeeze out of you,
fluffy is gonna get it.
>> One vet named Rose Peters who worked at a practice that ended up getting
bought out by a private equity firm says, no, prices shot up significantly.
We saw three price increases in the span of a year and a half.
And when I talk to some of my other colleagues who work at other practices,
either branches of the same company or other similar corporate companies,
they're experiencing the same thing.
>> Of course.
>> And again, I mean, look, private equity knows.
I mean, if your pet is sick, I would drain my savings.
I just would, right?
Because for a lot of people that is a family member,
that pet is such an important part of their lives.
And so they're preying on these people to maximize their profits,
to squeeze every penny they can from these people.
And it's so disgusting.
>> Well, Ana, when you tell me how much you love your dog, charlie,
I see inefficiency, someone could take a lot more money out of your pocket for
that love that you have for your dog.
Private equity look at it, they already did look into it, and
that's what they're doing all across the country now.
So if you've got a pet, look forward to higher costs if your vet practice got
bought by a private equity company.
>> This country is sick.