They bought the rival slide and called it more competition. I know the sentence. It is what a portfolio company says when it has already swallowed three playground makers, finds a fourth one taking its customers, and decides the cheapest way to beat a better slide is to own it.
Here is the record. On Oct. 19, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to block Platinum Equity and its portfolio company PlayPower from buying BCI Burke, one of PlayPower’s closest competitors in commercial outdoor playground equipment, from Bertram Capital. Twelve state attorneys general joined: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. The commission vote was 2-0. The FTC says Burke would join a PlayPower portfolio that already includes Miracle Recreation Equipment Company, Little Tikes Commercial and Playworld Systems, “brands PlayPower previously acquired,” and that five companies, PlayPower and Burke among them, own more than a dozen playground brands and hold 85% to 90% of the U.S. market. The complaint says parks, schools, churches and other customers often spend “from $50,000 to more than $1 million” on a commercial playground; that PlayPower’s playground business is “the product of three successive acquisitions: Miracle in 1993, Little Tikes in 2004, and Playworld in 2016”; that Platinum Equity acquired PlayPower Holdings in October 2025 and on Feb. 8, 2026 agreed to buy all of Burke’s voting securities; and that “facing losses to Burke, PlayPower is once again seeking to buy a disruptive rival.” It alleges consolidation has produced “significant price increases” and that PlayPower is “not just passing on rising costs.” In the public version, the words PlayPower’s CFO used to justify a 2026 price increase to sales representatives are blacked out. Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition: “Instead of investing in building better playgrounds or lowering prices, PlayPower and its parent Platinum Equity want to eliminate one of PlayPower’s fiercest competitors and continue to raise prices on American schools, parks departments, churches and municipalities.” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, per Axios: “PlayPower is losing ground to Burke.” A PlayPower spokesperson told Axios the merger “would create even more competition in a highly fragmented and globally competitive market, not diminish it.”
Taryn priced a slide for the church picnic and asked how a slide costs more than Buck’s truck. Buck said “private equity,” then asked what private equity is. Deb told him it’s what happens when a jungle gym gets a CFO. I love them. They are seasoning.
“More competition” is the alibi. The roll-up is the story. Sit with the dates until they confess: 1993, 2004, 2016, and now 2026, a company that grew not by building a better ladder but by buying whoever did, and a private-equity owner that bought the roll-up in October and signed for the next rival by February. That is not a market. That is a menu with one waiter. And the customer here is not some abstraction; it is a church that holds a bake sale for the slide, a school with a PTA and a parking-lot carnival, a parks department with a line item. When a firm in an 85-to-90-percent club tells you swallowing the competitor who is beating it will create more competition, it is not making an argument. It is making a dare. I will not crown the regulators for taking it. The FTC’s own release says state and local governments spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year on playgrounds; this is the state discovering antitrust the week the bill hits its own budget, after decades in which the same roll-up grew one acquisition at a time. But the anti-capitalist cut stays sharp, cardigan and all: a CFO’s reason for raising the price of a swing set is redacted in a federal complaint, and somewhere a kid is going to climb that swing set without knowing his recess has a hurdle rate. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, what the blacked-out sentence says, and who gets to read it before the next playground goes out to bid.
Sources:
- Federal Trade Commission, “FTC Sues to Block PlayPower’s Acquisition of Rival Playground Manufacturer Burke,” press release, Oct. 19, 2026
- FTC et al. v. PlayPower, Inc. et al., Case No. 3:26-cv-12072 (N.D. Cal.), Complaint for a Permanent Injunction (public redacted version), filed Oct. 19, 2026
- Axios, Dan Primack, “Antitrust officials try to block playground equipment merger,” Oct. 20, 2026
- Arizona Attorney General’s Office, “Attorney General Mayes, FTC File Complaint to Block Merger of Commercial Playground Equipment Companies PlayPower, Burke,” Oct. 19, 2026
— Theo Ashford-Lindström
Leave a Reply