The LastFrontier: How Private Equity is Strip Mining America's Main St

Strip mining is one of the most destructive environmental practices on Earth. It tears through layers of soil, rock, and vegetation to expose valuable minerals or coal beneath the surface. The immediate result is a scarred, lifeless landscape—but the long-term damage is even worse: contaminated water, ruined ecosystems, and land so poisoned it takes generations to heal.

It’s hard not to see the parallels between strip mining and what’s happening to small businesses across America today. Except instead of minerals, the resource being extracted is wealth—and instead of mountains and forests, the landscape being stripped is Main Street.

The Takeover of Main Street

Tiffany Science’s story reads like a corporate horror movie—but it’s real life.

A recent article in The Washingtonian tells the story of Tiffany, a former Little Gym franchise owner whose business was hijacked by private equity (PE) after nearly two years of COVID-related shutdowns. Tiffany’s gym was forced to close for 17 months due to state and local mandates, leaving her business financially weakened and vulnerable to takeover. That’s when a private equity firm swooped in and bought the parent company.

What happened next was brutal. Tiffany and other franchise owners were pressured to sign new agreements that required them to pay more for services and purchase additional services they had never agreed to. When they pushed back, the PE firm retaliated—threatening them with lawsuits and sending intimidating letters. Tiffany now faces bankruptcy—not because of mismanagement, but because a private equity firm targeted her business, leveraged her financial vulnerability, and systematically squeezed her out.

Tiffany’s story isn’t an outlier. It’s part of a growing trend where PE firms are aggressively targeting franchises and small businesses across the country. In the last five years, the number of private equity acquisitions of franchises has doubled. Now, the majority of non-publicly traded franchise brands have either been acquired by private equity or are currently in the process of being shopped to PE firms.

This isn’t just about gyms and restaurants—it’s happening across industries. Private equity firms now own dozens of daycare chains, nursing homes, car dealerships, insurance brokerages, and even real estate offices.

Why This Hurts Communities

I recently spoke with the owner of a local plumbing company who told me that he gets calls every single week from private equity firms trying to buy him out. It’s tempting, right? A big payday, a chance to cash in after years of hard work. But the consequences for the community are dire.

When small businesses sell to private equity, the profits don’t stay local. That money no longer circulates through the community, supporting local schools, public services, and other businesses. It’s funneled upward—out of town, out of state, and straight into the pockets of Wall Street investors who have no stake in the community.

When small businesses sell to private equity, the heartbeat of a community starts to fade. Those familiar faces behind the counter? Gone. The sponsorship for the local Little League team? Gone. The money you spend at what used to be a neighborhood staple? Gone—shipped off to Wall Street.

This is how local economies die. Small businesses are the backbone of the middle class. They create jobs, sponsor Little League teams, and donate to local charities. When they’re replaced by corporate chains or consolidated under the control of a PE firm, those jobs become low-wage positions, the local sponsorships disappear, and the wealth generated by the business is shipped off to a distant headquarters.

The Last Frontier

Most small business owners signed contracts with locally-owned franchise companies, never imagining they’d end up in a financial death match with a Wall Street powerhouse.

And here’s the worst part—there’s virtually no oversight. The government and the SEC have no visibility into how PE firms operate. These firms take on massive debt, strip businesses of their assets, and leave communities to pick up the pieces when those businesses inevitably collapse under the weight of unsustainable costs.

So What Can We Do?

1. Shop Local – Every dollar you spend at a locally-owned business stays in your community. Supporting local businesses helps create jobs, strengthen the tax base, and keep money circulating where it belongs.

2. Advocate for Regulation – Private equity operates in a legal gray area with minimal oversight. Lawmakers need to step up and put guardrails in place to protect small business owners from predatory takeovers.

3. Support Small Business Owners – When your favorite local shop or service asks for support, give it. Leave a review, recommend them to a friend, and make an effort to spend your money there.

We can allow private equity to strip mine Main Street until it’s as lifeless and toxic as the Berkeley Pit in Montana—where birds die within minutes of landing—or we can reclaim our communities by investing in small businesses before there’s nothing left to save.

Because once the damage is done, you can’t just fill in the hole and expect life to grow back.