why would you think a public traded company behaves any better than a privately owned one?

My understanding is people don't like the PE / LBO with a single investor, because it loads the company with debt that it pays back via cutting quality and service offerings.

My assumption is publicly traded company would have access to better financing terms and a diverse set of investors with less "hunger" the financial shenanigans the PE investors have.

Totally agree - but I guess I was getting at is that largest mfg. per the article is a a public company, and the number two is private equity, would we think that there would be a meaningfully different dynamic if they both were public?