Lane

Suggested questions for the case are given below.

1. What criteria is Lane using to identify acquisition candidates? Do these criteria seem appropriate?

Lane criteria of identifying acquisition candidates are that any of the acquisitions were to focus on a distribution business. His acquisitions focused on poor management because he was confident with his skills he could make any company more profitable and knew a lot of money could be made out there. I think his criteria were appropriate for the most part because buying a company is something that is a great big deal to someone’s life so having his standards of what his interest is can only benefit you from running a business you put 100% into.

2. What mistakes, if any, has Lane made in his attempts to purchase companies up to now?

There were few mistakes Lane made in attempting the purchases of companies during the time he was searching. In the 1st attempted purchase Lane decided to go for a public company which was a problem because of the high costs in fee’s for lawyers which was a sunk cost to them. The 2nd attempt was a good, it was good company but I didn’t think Lane wanted to go through with it because it looked good on paper for a small business. The problem was Lane didn’t want to the play games, which meant drawing the fine line between right and wrong. I think the mistakes of buying going after a public company and by not wanting to put in the work to “play games” were mistakes made from Lane.

3. What are the most significant practical insights Lane has gained from each of the companies he has looked at?

Significant Insights Lane gained from each company was not to look at a company that would take a lot of time, which most likely were public companies. Another insight was looking at small business with undervalued inventory because you have to see if they were messing with the books, playing the game of this can cause the IRS may catch on that you were not paying taxes...