Buy, Run, Build - by Charles Skinner (Hardcover)

About the Book

A detailed examination of how entrepreneurs can often have more success - financial and operational - with buying an established, growing company, rather than creating a start-up from nothing.

Book Synopsis

A detailed examination of how entrepreneurs can often have more success - financial and operational - with buying an established, growing company, rather than creating a start-up from nothing.

Entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA), also known as Acquisition Entrepreneurship, allows entrepreneurs to leverage their skills, capabilities, and interests to purchase an existing business and grow and improve it from within. ETA can be an easier form of entrepreneurship than a traditional start-up (as an established business is being taken over) and one in which interest is growing exponentially.

There are now a significant number of search funds in the US and this number is increasing in the UK, too. From current MBA graduates, to thriving corporate managers looking to strike out on their own, to retiring business owners seeking to exit the market and sell their business on, ETA through search funds is becoming an increasingly popular choice.

Buy, Run, Build is rooted the real-life business experiences of the author, as well as case studies from across a range of sectors. It explains how to run a business, how to find and value companies, how to fund acquisitions and negotiate deals, how to manage mergers and - often very importantly - what to do if things start to go wrong.

About the Author

Charles Skinner is an industry specialist in ETA. As CEO, he took one company worth £3m and built it into a business which sold for £100m. With another company he ran, the share price went up 40-fold and the business is now worth £300m and was AIM company of the year. Charles is an adviser to an ETA search fund, Mentmore Associates, and he currently chairs five private companies. In addition to this, Charles was editor of the magazine, Management Today.