Raymond Svider, chairman of private equity firm BC Partners, remembers the intense pressure he felt in the days leading up to Christmas in 2017. His firm's biggest investment, the brick-and-mortar pet food retailer PetSmart, was flailing. Its antiquated technology needed an overhaul; costs were ballooning. Svider was splitting time between BC's office on Madison Avenue in Manhattan and PetSmart's Phoenix headquarters, where he was acting CEO. PetSmart's bonds were trading just above 60 cents on the dollar. He arrived in Phoenix to learn from PetSmart's CIO that the highly leveraged retailer had put in place a companywide hiring freeze to conserve cash, forcing it to rely on pricey contractors.
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