When a private equity firm takes a public firm private by purchasing all of its common stock with leverage loans. The private equity firm then makes changes to the company, in effect "dressing up" the company, with an eye toward bringing it public again via an initial public offering (IPO).
Repackaging is a very common and popular route taken by private equity firms. For instance, there were 77 IPOs brought to the market by private equity buyout firms in 2006. The goal is to improve the company that is taken over enough so that the funds received for the IPO of the newly packaged company will exceed the amount of funds sunk into the company. The risk is that changes made to the company will not actually improve it. In those cases, the company may not be able to be sold or must be sold for less than the original purchase price.