When meatpackers stop production for the day, they depend on sanitation crews to clean their factories before the next shift, and Packers Sanitation Services, known as PSSI, often describes itself as the leading company to do that type of work.

Although it is relatively unknown compared to its publicly traded clients, like Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride, PSSI, which is privately held, has been watched by investors since 2007, when it was first sold to a private equity fund called Blue Point Capital Partners. PSSI has been owned by a series of different private equity funds ever since — it was subsequently sold to Harvest Partners, then to Leonard Green & Partners for $1 billion, and, most recently, in 2018, it was sold for an undisclosed sum to Blackstone, the largest private equity fund in the world.

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“Private equity doesn’t care that much if their private subsidiary companies go bankrupt, whereas for a public company it is embarrassing,” said Matt Stoller, the research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for breaking up large corporations. The group’s executive director is a former Treasury Department official.