 According to Christopher Palmeri, by 2005, the "$15-billion-a-year [debt buyer] industry, by 2005 had gone "corporate".In the third quarter of 2005 alone, "private-equity firms, venture capitalists, and others invested a record $1.6 billion in the business, almost as much as in all of [2004].Six firms [were] publicly traded, and two made secondary share offerings [in 2005]."