Another story that this thread brings to mind:
Back in the bad old days, after retiring from the navy, I was the chief financial analyst in a Des Moines based company that did Large Group Insurance and Claims processing. I worked directly for the CFO, kind of the #2 finance guy. We were approached by a couple of guys that owned a small company out of St Louis that was doing very well putting large networks together for employers to offer medical benefits. This is mid 90's stuff, HMO's and "Death Panels" were big in the news. This entire business has long been overtaken by new business models. (OBTW, one of the owners wore a cape to every meeting I was ever in with him, but that is another story)
The guys' entire pitch was, "We are salesmen, we sale. We cannot run a business, we have grown so much, we are in over our heads. You guys are the best at running a business, please buy us so we can once again sell and you can run the business. And we can all make a boatload of money."
I did HUNDREDS of hours of due diligence, "millions" of cells of Excel, examined every detail with the CFO, CEO and counsel. We eventually bought the company. The business was outside our core competencies, but close enough that we could bring it in under our umbrella, with sustained effort on our part. One of my last, of many, graphics in my final presentation, was, "These guys are salesmen, they cannot run their growing business, we are buying them to grow the business. We have to be committed to running this new business."
Well, within six months another even more attractive acquisition emerged, and the management team went into heat, and started chasing the "next big thing." They completely took their eye off the ball in regard to the St Louis company (that had continued to do outstanding, under our initial tutelage, by the way).
I was asked to sit in on a meeting concerning the newest target. At some point the COO stated that they didn't have the depth to integrate the one company, while pursuing the new one. The CEO basically stated, "Well, we will have to let the St Louis guys run themselves again for awhile."
Never one to take the opportunity to keep my mouth shut, I opined, "Hey, we bought the company because they couldn't run it, now you are telling them to run it, I can't believe this, we are setting ourselves up for failure." Needless to say, the top brass did not like hearing that from a minion as myself.
After getting chewed out by most of the meeting's participants, during the meeting that then terminated, I was privately reamed out by the CFO in a post meeting ass chewing. I remember one key phrase, "Who are you to challenge the best business minds in Des Moines and St Louis ....."
Within a year, the St Louis acquisition had failed, could not be sold, and led to a huge loss.
No one every apologized. Fuck 'um.
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