"Bain’s ambitious plans to revamp the retailer with high margin private label brands, the elimination of negotiated sales, and improved inventory management were quickly derailed by the 2008 financial crisis."
Most of those sound like really bad ideas (inventory management is of course a good idea). Take over a company, and then stop doing the things that made the company successful....what could go wrong??
The result, according to the article: "Successful businesses thrive by delivering a desirable product or service at a compelling price and financial management exists to support the basic mission of serving the customer. For the past thirteen years Guitar Center’s owners had this formula exactly backwards. In their world, the primary role of the retail operations was to meet outsized interest payments."
I'm not surprised. THis has happened again and again with this kind of buyout or acquisition.