America's new millionaire class: Plumbers and HVAC entrepreneurs

My dad bought a failing HVAC business 30+ years ago, then made it profitable over the years and sold it back to his employees last year. He had the option to take a few highly lucrative PE deals, but it was clear they would squeeze the life out of the employees and customers he had worked hard to support over many years. I can’t imagine how low quality this kind of trade work will become if PE owns them all. It will be similar to vet, dentist, and dermatology clinics which now feel like factories that don’t care about the humans on the other end - often employing fear tactics and sales quotas to incentivize upsells.

I'm glad you mention dentists/vets. I make it a point to verify local businesses aren't PE owned before I will use them.

Of course one of the problems with PE is they hoover up _all_ the businesses in an area so you don't have a choice.

There really needs to be regulation in this area preventing a single beneficial entity/controlling entity from buying/owning more than a few percent of a certain type of business in an area.

Hm what’s the best way to look up the owner of a business? I share this viewpoint on dentists and doctors

The fastest and simplest way is to ask them directly by calling or emailing. Searching for information about private legal entities, while possible, is inconvenient and usually incomplete/sparse.

But why would they respond with that information?

PE already has a pretty bad press, so they know that customers are calling only because PE is a red flag.

They could just serve some meaningless half-truth and try to confuse you.