

How to Acquire a Company for Free - peter123
http://blog.inc.com/nolan-bushnell/2009/05/how_to_acquire_a_company_for_f.html

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tjmc
Aquiring a company that's losing money is hardly "free". After Nick Leeson's
rogue trading spree, ING bought Barings for £1, but they then inherited a good
chunk of its liabilities.

The author's advice is trite. Who would ever go knocking door to door at a
business park looking for failing businesses? It often makes sense to aquire
businesses in a field in which you're already established, but doing it
essentially at random? That's just stupid.

It's also bad advice because it's pitched at a general audience, but it's
really a specialist field for people who know how to cut costs and turn around
a business (during a major recession btw). It's the business equivalent of
learning to surf on a 20' break - astonishing if you pull it off, far more
likely to end in tragedy.

~~~
jteo
Some people are more inclined from a "fix-her-up" perspective, ie. people who
know how to turn around a business, but may not have had the idea to start
one.

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binarray2000
Fellow entrepreneurs, let's get back to the meat of his blog post which is in
the third paragraph.

One sentence from that paragraph "If you cannot bring fresh ideas, energy, and
skill to a business--any business--then it will not succeed." perfectly
describes what makes or breaks every entrepreneur (and her/his business). He
probably reminded a few people who have "fresh ideas, energy, and skill" that
there is another path to being an entrepreneur (taking over a company).

And it's the path taken by quite a few people. Warren Buffett (according to
Wikipedia, Berkshire Hathaway - a textile manufacturing company - was in
trouble before Buffett) comes to mind. Another example (especially for the
last sentence: "Don’t worry about what the business does in terms of revenue
right now; look at it as a start--a platform that over time can be morphed
into what ever you want.") is Martin Sorrell (WPP, the largest advertising
network was, prior to Sorrell, "Wire and Plastic Products plc" and made wire
shopping baskets).

PS - Kudos to the OP, great blog that I didn't know of even though I visit and
read inc.com quite often.

~~~
pchristensen
If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have noticed that it was written by
Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese. The guy who once had
Steve Jobs working on an assembly line wiring up arcade games. Double kudos to
you for making me do the double-take.

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sireat
In Europe there are places where you can pick up a castle/mansion for a 1
Euro. The catch? You are obliged to do restoration and upkeep, which can run
well into millions.

~~~
netsp
Ownership of heritage buildings in much of Europe can hardly be called
ownership.

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mellis
The ultimate recent example being Chrysler, in which Fiat got a 20% (later
rising to 35% and beyond) stake for "free". (They're sharing IP, etc.)
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13610819>

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fallentimes
I used to work in finance and these guys:

<http://www.platinumequity.com/site/action/home>

did this on a much larger scale. They were always doing the deals no one else
wanted.

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chaosmachine
A local television company recently put 3 of their stations up for sale for
$1.

~~~
kiwidrew
That sounds quite intruiging -- did it include anything like FCC licenses,
broadcasting equipment, studio space? (Link?)

~~~
chaosmachine
<http://www.bnn.ca/news/9003.html>

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rms
Permalink: [http://blog.inc.com/nolan-
bushnell/2009/05/how_to_acquire_a_...](http://blog.inc.com/nolan-
bushnell/2009/05/how_to_acquire_a_company_for_f.html)

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woodsier
What a silly article. These companies are hardly free.

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terpua
I would go so far to say that the HN community/startups are already "acquiring
companies for free" all the time - open source software.

It's a ready-to-go free asset without which I wouldn't be able to bootstrap my
startup.

Of course, we don't own the "asset" and as such, the distinction.

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joezydeco
Considering Nolan has managed to tank a number of startups over his lifetime
post-Atari, I'm guessing he has experience from the other end. Anyone still
holding uWink stock out there?

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edw519
"How can you find a free company to take over? Check out business brokers on
the web, Craigslist, and the classified ads in your local newspaper and any
trade journals."

Only if you want the leftovers that the insiders have passed over. OP is in a
time warp. Anything worth acquiring gets acquired long before in reaches the
advertising stage. You'll need a network to find these.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Depends on the size of the company. I have a friend (an EE with an MBA) who
paid $20k for a tiny sensor manufacturing business that he turned around and
sold for about $200k two years later. Got that through a broker.

My wife used to have a small housecleaning business that she had to abandon
after she became very ill. Had we thought of it at the time, the customer list
would have been valuable to someone looking to startup. For less than $1,000
in equipment + the cost of the list, they could have walked into an
immediately cash-flowing business. Actually, I'm surprised none of her
employess thought about doing that.

None of these are free, but they're cheap enough that they may as well be.

