Little trick for acquiring IP

[aarondmsu]

I decided to move into the drug business. I looked around and saw that there was a competitor with high tech rating in headache pills. Based on their R&D activity, I realized right away that I would never be able to catch up. So I tried to buy their tech. The CEO wouldn't accept any price. $20, $50m, $75m, his response was always the same (i.e. "we aren't interested in selling to our competitors). I even offered $200m. A ridiculous offer. I wasn't going to continue the game on that basis but I just wanted to see if he'd take it. He still declined. I looked at their stock and realized that it would cost about $250m to acquire over 50% of their stock. There was enough held by public shareholders, and I had more than enough cash, so I went for it. I bought 50.1% of his company thinking I could then force the sale of the tech through, either by firing the guy or whatever other technique I needed. I guess I was wrong. I couldn't find a way to fire him (this is a side question btw: if I own more than 50%, I ought to be able to fire the CEO. Am I wrong?). Anyway, I went again and made another offer to buy the headache pills tech. This time, he accepted the sale for a mere $19m. I closed the deal and then resold all of my stock in their corporation back to the public. I started this little endeavor with about $450m in cash. Immediately after I resold all my stock in their corporation back to the public, I had about $420m in cash and ownership of the technology. So after it was all said and done, it cost me about $30m to acquire their headache pills technology, when their CEO was initially declining offers up to $200m.

[megapolis]

I decided to move into the drug business. I looked around and saw that there was a competitor with high tech rating in headache pills. Based on their R&D activity, I realized right away that I would never be able to catch up. So I tried to buy their tech. The CEO wouldn't accept any price. $20, $50m, $75m, his response was always the same (i.e. "we aren't interested in selling to our competitors). I even offered $200m. A ridiculous offer. I wasn't going to continue the game on that basis but I just wanted to see if he'd take it. He still declined. I looked at their stock and realized that it would cost about $250m to acquire over 50% of their stock. There was enough held by public shareholders, and I had more than enough cash, so I went for it. I bought 50.1% of his company thinking I could then force the sale of the tech through, either by firing the guy or whatever other technique I needed. I guess I was wrong. I couldn't find a way to fire him (this is a side question btw: if I own more than 50%, I ought to be able to fire the CEO. Am I wrong?). Anyway, I went again and made another offer to buy the headache pills tech. This time, he accepted the sale for a mere $19m. I closed the deal and then resold all of my stock in their corporation back to the public. I started this little endeavor with about $450m in cash. Immediately after I resold all my stock in their corporation back to the public, I had about $420m in cash and ownership of the technology. So after it was all said and done, it cost me about $30m to acquire their headache pills technology, when their CEO was initially declining offers up to $200m.

You can fire CEO once you will acquire 75% of the stock.

[aarondmsu]

That's good to know. Seems like the magic number should be anything greater than 50%. Nobody can outvote you at that point.