Having worked at a company that became saddled with huge debt, I am leaning to look at this the other way. The bank(s), in cooperation with the buyers, found a target to extract money from. The goal for them may not be long term health of the company but to suck as much out of it as they can without immediately killing it until eventually there's nothing left.

I have become cynical. I am starting to believe that there is a lot of fund managers who do not are not doing their best for their clients but instead of their own bonuses. From that viewpoint everything starts to make lot more sense. Out-sized returns when there is not risk for person deciding on investment.

It is easy to rope in gullible who want those big returns. And the game has been run for years now. On paper things looked or maybe still look good. Reality is probably lot worse.