Yves Smith has a fascinating post about how private equity firms (which, as she notes in the comments is largely a polite rebranding of "leveraged buyout firms") charge fees for services provided by captive affiliates to their portfolio companies. On some level none of it is anything so new--part of the LBO game has always been to suck out fees and dividends from the target company, while gambling that the target would be able to service the debt incurred for its acquisition.
