What the Heck Is Private Equity, and Why Is It Everywhere?

HIDDEN WEALTH

The last article ended with me trying to figure out what wealthy families do when they need a team managing their money but don’t want to build their own family office. Apparently, there’s an entire business for that, and I said we’d explore it next.

Then private equity started showing up in conversations about girls’ volleyball. I spent nearly two decades working in home care, where private equity has become increasingly active in recent years, but I never expected to hear the same conversations about youth sports.

When I first got into home care, I wasn’t thinking about investment firms or institutional capital. I was thinking about caregivers, clients, payroll, referrals, and the thousand little things that could go wrong between somebody calling the office and somebody showing up at their front door.

Over time, the industry changed. Larger companies became more visible, acquisitions entered the conversation, and private equity firms started taking an interest in businesses that had spent years quietly helping families care for aging parents.

I knew what private equity was, at least in the general sense. Investors buying companies, combining businesses, and eventually trying to sell them for more than they paid. I understood enough to follow the conversation without necessarily understanding everything happening behind it.

But girls’ volleyball?

I’ve spent enough time around club volleyball to know there’s a considerable amount of money involved. Between club fees, uniforms, private lessons, tournaments, hotels, and travel, parents can spend thousands of dollars before the season ends, only to start preparing for the next one.

I’d spent years operating in one industry and countless weekends paying to participate in the other. Somehow, I had never considered that the same investors might be interested in both.

So Where Does the Money Come From?

I always pictured private equity as wealthy investors pooling their money to buy companies. Which isn’t entirely wrong, except the people making the acquisitions aren’t necessarily the ones supplying most of the money.

A private equity firm might be managing investments for pension funds, insurance companies, university endowments, or wealthy families. And that means somebody who has never heard of the firm could still have money invested through it.

Take a teacher who’s spent 30 years working toward retirement. Part of the pension fund supporting that retirement might be invested in private equity, which could own a healthcare company, a software business, or a collection of home care agencies.

That teacher might never hear of the home care agency their retirement savings helped finance. And the caregivers showing up for work every morning might have no idea that a teacher’s pension fund is one of the investors behind their employer.

So why would an investment firm want to own a home care agency?

What Are They Seeing in Home Care?

Imagine somebody who’s spent years building a successful home care agency.

They’ve developed relationships with hospitals, referral sources, caregivers, and families throughout their community. The company has a strong reputation, steady revenue, and an owner who’s probably spent more weekends answering work calls than they’d care to remember.

Then someone comes along and offers to buy it. I can understand why the owner might listen. After years of scheduling, employee turnover, payroll, regulations, and all the other headaches that come with running an agency, a substantial offer can be pretty attractive.

But why is the buyer interested?

The obvious answer is demand. People are living longer, the population is aging, and plenty of families would prefer to keep their loved ones at home rather than move them into a facility.

Large national home care companies exist, but thousands of smaller operators serve individual cities and communities. Some are franchises, others are independently owned, and many have spent years building successful businesses without necessarily becoming enormous.

Now imagine an investor buys one agency, then another, then several more.

Instead of five separate companies handling everything independently, the investor might combine certain administrative functions, introduce common technology, negotiate contracts across a larger organization, and create a business with a much wider geographic reach.

In private equity, this approach is commonly called a roll-up. One company serves as the foundation, and the firm acquires and integrates additional businesses into the larger operation.

According to Capstone Partners’ Home Care M&A Update, private equity firms completed 43 transactions in the home care sector during 2025. Thirty-two were add-on acquisitions, meaning investors were purchasing additional businesses to expand companies they already owned.

I know how much work goes into building one of these businesses. The relationships, the employees, the families who depend on you. An investor might look at that same company and see an opportunity to expand into another market. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a completely different way of looking at the same business.

Wait, They’re Doing This With Volleyball?

A typical club volleyball weekend involves considerably more than volleyball. Between club fees, private lessons, tournament registrations, hotel rooms, and weekends spent walking through convention centers where every court looks like the one you just passed, an entire economy operates around these girls playing a sport they love.

And there’s a business attached to nearly every part of that experience. The clubs collect membership fees. Tournament organizers charge registration fees. Facilities rent court space. Coaches offer private training. Companies sell uniforms, equipment, photography, recruiting services, and video subscriptions.

I always saw these as separate businesses offering different services. Then I started reading about League One Volleyball (LOVB).

According to Sports Business Journal’s reporting on LOVB, the organization had built a network of 58 youth volleyball clubs representing more than 17,000 players before launching its professional league in 2025. That gave LOVB an established connection to youth volleyball before it entered the professional game, where sponsorships, media opportunities, and other commercial relationships could become part of a much larger business.

In March 2026, private equity firm Synergy Sports Capital acquired the operating rights to LOVB’s Salt Lake professional team and invested in the broader league. That’s not the same as a private equity firm buying a local youth volleyball club, and I don’t want to confuse the two.

I came across a Sports Business Journal article about private equity investing in youth sports technology. Apparently, investors aren’t just interested in teams and clubs. They’re also looking at the companies handling registrations, payments, schedules, and other services that keep youth sports running.

A volleyball club is one business, but the tournament operator, the facility hosting the event, the company streaming the matches, and the software handling registrations may all be separate businesses. Some investors focus on the clubs themselves, while others see opportunities in the companies that serve those clubs and their families. Depending on who owns what, a single weekend of volleyball could generate revenue for several businesses in the same investment portfolio.

Buying the Business Is Only the Beginning

Let’s go back to that home care agency for a minute.

The owner receives an offer for $20 million. After years of building the agency, that’s a number worth considering. But the buyer might not have $20 million in its own money sitting in an account, ready to spend.

A private equity firm doesn’t necessarily write a $20 million check using only investor money. It might contribute $10 million and borrow the other $10 million to complete the acquisition.

Now imagine the firm spends the next five years growing the agency, acquiring other businesses, and expanding into new markets. Eventually, another buyer comes along and offers $40 million for the larger company.

Any remaining debt still has to be repaid, along with other outstanding obligations. But depending on how the business performs and how much debt remains, investors could make considerably more than they originally contributed.

That’s essentially a leveraged buyout, where investors use borrowed money alongside their own capital to purchase a company.

Of course, the same arrangement looks different if the business struggles. The debt doesn’t disappear when revenue falls short of expectations, and the company still has to meet whatever financial obligations came with the acquisition.

The private equity firm can also earn money along the way by collecting management fees and potentially receiving a share of profits when it sells the investment.

The original owner may have received a substantial payout, the investors hope to make a return, and the private equity firm earns money by managing the investment. But the company itself still has employees, customers, and day-to-day responsibilities that don’t disappear just because somebody new owns it.

What Happens When the Owner Leaves?

Having operated a business, I understand why someone might eventually want to sell.

You can love what you’ve built and still get tired of managing it. After enough years, a good offer might be difficult to turn down, particularly if the buyer has the resources to grow the company beyond what you could accomplish on your own.

And not every sale means the founder disappears. Some owners remain involved, keep a minority interest, or continue running the company under a new ownership structure.

But imagine the founder does leave. Employees who’ve been there for years suddenly work for someone else, and customers who chose the company because they trusted the owner have to get used to a new organization. Maybe the new ownership brings better technology, stronger administrative support, and resources the original owner never had. Or maybe some of the things people liked about the company begin to change.

A volleyball club that’s been around for 20 years might have a reputation built around certain coaches, a particular training philosophy, and relationships with families who have been involved for generations.

A larger organization might bring better facilities, more training opportunities, and access to tournaments or programs that weren’t previously available.

But I imagine parents would still focus on what they always cared about.

Who’s coaching my daughter? Is she developing? Is she enjoying the experience? And how much is this going to cost me next season?

Those questions probably don’t change much just because the ownership does.

What Club Volleyball Might Look Like in Ten Years

I wouldn’t be surprised if the next decade brings more consolidation to club volleyball. Smaller clubs could be acquired, larger organizations could expand into new markets, and investors could look beyond the clubs themselves to tournaments, facilities, and the technology surrounding the sport.

Eventually, a handful of companies could operate clubs in multiple states, run major tournaments, own training facilities, and provide the streaming services parents use to watch their kids play. A family might spend an entire weekend paying different businesses without realizing several belong to the same investment group.

What I can’t predict is what happens to the smaller clubs that have been part of their communities for years. Some might welcome the opportunity to join larger organizations, while others may want to remain independent. For parents already spending thousands of dollars a year, it’ll be interesting to see whether this investment makes the sport more accessible or simply more expensive.

I’ve watched home care evolve from an industry that depended heavily on individual owners and local relationships to one where larger organizations have become increasingly involved. I wouldn’t be surprised if club volleyball is heading in a similar direction, where the name on the uniform stays familiar even as the business behind it becomes something much bigger.

Home Care, Volleyball, and Somebody Else’s Money

I spent years dealing with caregivers, clients, and everything that comes with operating a home care business. These days, I’m spending plenty of weekends in volleyball gyms, watching games and trying to figure out which court we’re supposed to be on. Somehow, private equity has found its way into both worlds.

The money behind these investments can come from pension funds, institutions, and wealthy families. And those families may have money spread across dozens of businesses, investment funds, real estate holdings, and financial institutions.

Which brings me back to the question I left hanging in the last article. What happens when a wealthy family needs somebody coordinating all of that but doesn’t want to build its own family office?

Apparently, there’s an answer. And this time, I think I’ll actually get to it.