I was chatting with a company who sold a large minority stake in their company to a well known private equity group (think 49%) with the explicit purpose of retaining control.
Soon after the transaction closed, the PE firm was able to covertly buy another 2% of voting shares from a pre-existing investor in the company, which resulted in the PE firm gaining full majority control over the company, kicked out the CEO, replaced the board of directors, the whole works.
The unfortunate part about these kinds of things is that 1) they happen all the time, and 2) founders rarely talk about it because doing so can so often destroy your ability to get funding for future endevors, etc.
I really wish there were an anonymous but vetted "yelp" type of site for people/firms who do bad business. So much business is done in bad faith and the people on the losing end rarely have the ability to warn others of their experience without killing their own reputation.
Soon after the transaction closed, the PE firm was able to covertly buy another 2% of voting shares from a pre-existing investor in the company, which resulted in the PE firm gaining full majority control over the company, kicked out the CEO, replaced the board of directors, the whole works.
The unfortunate part about these kinds of things is that 1) they happen all the time, and 2) founders rarely talk about it because doing so can so often destroy your ability to get funding for future endevors, etc.
I really wish there were an anonymous but vetted "yelp" type of site for people/firms who do bad business. So much business is done in bad faith and the people on the losing end rarely have the ability to warn others of their experience without killing their own reputation.