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If there's a scoreboard for the assignment of blame, I would put it 98% on acquirer and 2% on "acquireree". It's hard to fault someone for taking a $20M exit to
by dhh 16y ago
If there's a scoreboard for the assignment of blame, I would put it 98% on acquirer and 2% on "acquireree". It's hard to fault someone for taking a $20M exit too harshly, but it's quite easy to fault a share-holder backed corporation that should know better.
- patio11 16y agoTo be fair, $20 million acquisitions would not be the first time money was wasted at a publicly traded company. That is actually pretty cheap compared to running a line of business with no future, such as the search engine at Yahoo or the automobile manufacturing at General Motors. (An obscure American health insurance company, misnamed due to funny historical issues.)
- jacquesm 16y agoThe pension funds of GM are at least as big a problem as the health insurance part. And GM still sells very large numbers of vehicles, if Skoda could be turned around I don't see any reason why the same could not happen to GM.
- davidw 16y agoA more interesting analysis might use data on acquisitions to chart how companies do compared to what they do or don't buy, and what they do with the acquired people and technology. That would at least be a start at determining whether there is really money being wasted or not.