You assumed someone was credible just because they called themselves professional? Where's that natural cynicism of yours that we've all come to love?
I am very cynical on this one - the 'professional' tag is in my book reserved for electric toothbrushes that tell us to brush like a pro - and apparently is better than doing it like Emmanuel Juan. (And if someone could enlighten me on why putting a vibrator in your mouth is better than whatever Emmanuel does, I would be grateful!)
I assumed that as I've been reported on this forum before for calling out lies and dishonesty that goes on here. I tend to ruffle a few feathers with my honesty.
I wish someone would ruffle my feathers - I haven't had a good ruffling for over a week!
As on outsider the world of business brokering seems littered with cowboys and wannabees. It appears more corrupt than the commercial energy brokering industry, and that's saying something.
That bit I'll agree with - and it seems to be a latter-day phenomenon and to be found in the massed ranks of the bottom feeders who are looking for suckers who don't know how to check people and companies out (i.e. due diligence).
But then I've seen a very large international buy a UK company with 100 employees and completely miss the salient fact that all the designs and licenses were the private property of the owners and a friend of theirs and had just five years to run - they had spent a goodly seven-figure sum on almost nothing! At that end of the market, it is often the buyers who are the stupid ones!
As for checking out the liquidity of someone - i.e. does this Charlie have any money? - I made an offer on a largish parcel of land and the seller was puzzled that I had not made the usual dance-around-the-houses about completion and mortgages and all that guff. Their beagle called my beagle and asked if I had the funds. Beagle-2 told Beagle-1 'Yes and then some!' and that was that.
But back to the Batmobile - do we need brokers? In the world I inhabit - no! But then I have always worked in small fields like music, film or news; fields where everyone knows everyone else. When I was in the music biz I met all the good and greats - it's pretty inevitable - there are only a couple of thousand people at a certain level. Most of them are money-on-the-hoof or ability-on-the-hoof: it's always one or the other. As soon as someone is dodgy, everyone in the biz gets to know about it!
You stiff the PA or lighting company once and suddenly every tour finance company and every PA or lighting company is fully booked and can't help you! And if you start acting-up and getting wild - rude, crude and socially unacceptable (tired and emotional) then you won't even get contingency insurance for your tour and then your career is in the toilet. When that happens, it's game-over!
But outside of small worlds like music, news and film - we seem to be getting a new breed of business person and quite honestly, they are a breed I stay away from. They are not real.
"WTF does that mean?" I hear you cry! I'll tell you in the words of an old producer friend of mine "I lose all sympathy for a man when I discover that he has no money!"
Worse still, they have neither money nor ability. They often either have no qualifications or some bogus nonsense from a polytech or did PPE or similar degrees. They have no substance. Some of these creepy-crawlies launch PE companies and try to do leveraged buy-outs - largely because they have heard of those! It sounds like a clever wheeze! A trick you can pull!
We're going to get a lot of those creatures in the coming months and years. They will try it on and of course, there will be some suckers out there daft enough or desperate enough to fall for them. Companies will fail a six-pack at a time and that means some Charlies will try to buy them for nothing. For those of you out there, remember to call Beagle-1. If Beagle-1 does not report back with a big grin on their face, do the old Weegie body-swerve!
As for our OP, when I said " you will have everything in place" that was me saying politely that you would not be out there, looking for an acquisition target if you didn't have a seven- or eight-figure sum lined up and ready to roll. When Beagle-1 calls Beagle-2, will he or she give you the thumbs up?
Or will they have to pull a face and start talking about proceeding with all due caution?
