Target and Kmart are going through a "silent" merger.
They've both been owned by Wesfarmers since 2007.
Unlike a normal merger when one store rebrands the other and some locations are closed, a silent merger means they'll just share the same head office and be under the same umbrella, but still two independent brands.
Silent mergers often turn into full mergers.
If that happens, since Kmart is the weaker brand, it means Target would eat what was left.
#PrivateEquity is quite a racket. #PE managers pile up other peoples' money - pension funds, plutes, other pools of money - and then "invest" it (buying businesses, loading them with debt, cutting wages, lowering quality and setting traps for customers). For this, they get an annual fee - 2% - of the money they manage, and a bonus for any profits they make.
Private equity is a cancer. Its profits come from buying productive firms, loading them with debt, abusing their suppliers, workers and customers, and driving them into ground, stiffing all of them - and the company's creditors. The #mafia have a name for this. They call it a "#BustOut":