Near the end of 2016, sales at PetSmart Inc. stores started sliding.
Executives at BC Partners, which had bought PetSmart in an $8 billion leveraged buyout in 2015, were scratching their heads. Operational improvements they made during their first year of ownership were so successful they had paid themselves a dividend. Why had same-store sales suddenly fallen over a period of only three weeks from flat to down almost 5%?
Read more of the Wall Street Journal’s article [here](http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-petsmart-swallowed-chewyand-proved-the-doubters-wrong-11569858310?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1).
