Cambridge Cluster

Image by * Cishore ♥ via FlickrFor the people who sold their business in the last year or so, get ready to buy it back.  It is smarter than starting a new venture!  After a stint in the army and marketing for Unilever, Stephen Morris set up his own marketing company, Haygarth, in 1984.  Three years later he sold it at the top of the market for £1million only to buy it back in 1990 for £100,000 when it went bust.  Eleven years later he sold out for £65million buying it back again in 2005 for a “mere” £6.2million.

Morris suggests that people should start thinking about exiting a business when they starting it but perhaps he means buying it back again before you have started it!  He warns that mistakes in shareholding agreements can end up costing a fortune so I guess he had an Active Equity Company with other shareholders.

But he warns that making a success of anything requires sacrifices like not seeing much of your kids growing up.  But then the kids have other things….

It reminds me when I was told that when we were building a business “(you) were hardly ever home and she was never home”.  But we had great skiing holidays!