It CAN be predatory. Just like any business (even non-profits) model CAN be predatory if the wrong incentives are in place or predatory people are running the show. There are some really broad strokes in this thread, and while it cannot be debated that traditional LBO-based PE has generated some bad headlines, those cases are not necessarily illustrative of how the industry (which is unfathomably massive and international) works as a whole. In fact, I am skeptical whenever anyone tries to describe the entire private funds industry as a whole because it is so large, so diversified and so ubiquitous at this point that no simple description would do it justice.