Yeah, but lots of the debt is actually on company's books - as is the case with LBOs. This is yet another case of barbarians at the gate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate) - corporate raider running a company into the ground.
Dell went private loaded with debts then add more debts by buying EMC and now Dell is public again.
October 6, 1997: Michael Dell makes an infamously bleak appraisal of Apple’s fortunes. Asked what he would do with the struggling company, the founder of Dell Inc. says he would “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”