The trend whereby private equity pile debt on an acquired company rather than buy it, nurture it, sell it and then profit from it may be harmful to the credit health of the targets, according to a new report by Standard & Poor’s. The S&P study reveals that an increasing number of p.e. firms are guilty of so-called “drive-bys” as a quick way of making money. S&P points as an example to the recent activity involving the Hertz car rental company, where the new private equity owners, through bank loans, made a cool $1 billion in what is referred to as “dividend recapitalizations.” Most p.e. firms can deal with the debt they amass, says S&P, though about 6% of them so far this year have defaulted on their loans. Peter Linthwaite, head of the British Venture Capital Association, pooh-poohs the p.e. findings. “Private equity firms don’t go into a deal with the idea of pushing as much debts as possible into it and saying, ‘Oh well, if to goes wrong it goes wrong.’ Most of their returns still come from when they sell the business,” Linthwaite told The Guardian.