This month, The Aaron’s Company Inc. became the latest home furnishings retailer to go private. The lease-to-own brand (which you may know better by its former name, Aaron Rents) has been acquired by a fintech company called IQVentures Holdings for $504 million, joining a wave of home industry brands that have also jumped to the private sector in recent times.

What gives?

The Aaron’s Company deal is occurring via perhaps the most common route: a private equity firm is folding the retailer into its portfolio of operating companies, which also includes BrandsMart USA, a quasi-club format. However it got there, Aaron’s is now shielded by the same big bad black umbrella that lets any private company go about its business without shareholders or Wall Street getting nosy—a boon for brands in a volatile macro economy that’s seen even the most stalwart companies struggle.

In what has turned out to be its last quarter of reporting public financial results, the 1,200-store retailer said its Q2 sales were off 5.1 percent compared to this quarter last year. The whole rental sector of retail, which has been doing well across multiple product categories—including The Aaron’s Company’s closest competitor, Rent-A-Center—does not seem to have helped the former offset its losses.

Of course, in the company’s statement, Aaron’s CEO Douglas Lindsay had a different spin on the deal: “By combining our expertise and resources with IQVentures’, we will be better positioned to accelerate our omni-channel strategy and enhance our operational efficiency, building on the momentum of our ongoing transformation over the past several years.”

Don’t be surprised to see some trimming of that fleet of locations, as well as a new focus on e-commerce, something that has not been the company’s strong suit so far. Whether you’ll see the kind of investment needed to freshen up those stores is another matter entirely.

Aaron’s joins the current ranks of privately owned retailers, which includes At Home, JCPenney, Belk and Hudson’s Bay (and its sister Saks brand, as well as its other soon-to-be stablemate, Neiman Marcus).

Nordstrom is trying to be next. The family that owns the brand has floated a proposal to take the company private in a move that bankers and other assorted money-types will need to approve. Nordstrom will like the privacy of fixing up its business, but with a potentially debt-loaded balance sheet, it’s unclear what kinds of changes could turn the brand around.

No matter who owns the pink slip for all these retailers, suppliers want assurance that the balance sheet is secure and they will get paid. That gets somewhat more difficult if they can’t look under the hood every 90 days, when financial results are legally required to be released for public companies.

And let’s not forget that going private is usually not the endgame for most of these companies. Especially when it’s under the aegis of outside investors, they eventually want to cash out, usually by turning the ship around and then taking the company public again.

It’s a vicious cycle ... vicious often being the key word.

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Warren Shoulberg is the former editor in chief for several leading B2B publications. He has been a guest lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; received honors from the International Furnishings and Design Association and the Fashion Institute of Technology; and been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other media as a leading industry expert. His Retail Watch columns offer deep industry insights on major markets and product categories.