Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π How Kraft pulled off a sweet acquisition In the 2000s the packaged-food industry entered a consolidation wave. Growth in mature grocery categories in North America slowed. Private-label competition was rising. And commodity costs were volatile. The food giants needed new ways to expand after exhausting all organic growth for their existing brands. So they started acquiring competitors, consolidating the industry into a few huge...
8 days agoΒ β’Β 3 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π How to Beat a Monopoly (or at least try) AT&T had one of the most dominant monopolies ever. For decades, it controlled over 80% of the telecom market and became the largest company in the world. No company came close to competing. But one tried, and built a $20 billion a year business in the process. Today we're going to look at the story of General Telephone's and how it eventually did surpass AT&T- but only after the government...
15 days agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π 2 nearly identical deals: Why one made 5x and the other failed Private equity loves to buy retail businesses. Staples, Macy's, and PetSmart are a few mega PE buyouts you might know about. But today I want to focus in on two fascinating PE deals that closed just before the 2008 recession. One was a disaster. And one wasn't. Deal #1: Toys "R" Us In March 2005, a consortium of KKR, Bain Capital, and others bought out Toys "R" Us. The...
22 days agoΒ β’Β 4 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π Join the CEO Bootcamp Nick Huber is hosting a CEO Bootcamp on Monday, September 21 to break down the four systems he uses to run his portfolio of companies. He'll cover the strategies he uses to delegate and set targets for his 400+ employees. Plus he'll go over his exact compensation structure. As an investor in Nick's company Somewhere, I know firsthand how skilled he is at building teams, managing processes, and scaling. If...
29 days agoΒ β’Β 3 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π They bought a $7 billion oil company (at the exact wrong time) In 1802, a French immigrant started a small gunpowder manufacturing business in Delaware. It later became one of the US military's largest suppliers. And two centuries later, it's one of the largest chemical companies in the world. The company: DuPont. A $17 billion company, DuPont manufactures and sells chemicals and materials like sealant, pesticides, nylon,...
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 4 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π The deal that defined media M&A for years Media M&A is fascinating to me. Nearly every media property we know of today has been bought and sold many times. The industry is constantly being shaken up. Today, I'm going to give you a brief overview of one of the most consequential deals in media history: The Time-Warner merger. But first you need some context. The end of the 1980s was a transition period for M&A. The LBO machine...
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π They found a $5 billion shipping lane 500 years ago In late 1502, an aging Christopher Columbus guided his ships along the east coast of what is now Panama. This was his fourth and final voyage. The Admiral was hunting for a westward passage that would open a direct trading route to Asia. He lingered in a sheltered bay he named Puerto Bello (βBeautiful Portβ), traded with local peoples, and pushed into the gold-rich region of...
about 2 months agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π They invented the utility roll-up in the 1850s In the 1840s, communication changed forever with the invention of a revolutionary new technology: The telegraph. Written messages no longer needed to be physically delivered by train or horse. But while the telegraph made it possible to send a message hundreds of miles instantly, someone still had to build the lines and maintain them. The need for a national telegraph infrastructure...
2 months agoΒ β’Β 3 min read
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. π How to acquire $4 billion in outdoor brands In the 1950s, three business partners developed an early snowmobile prototype using spare parts from a farm. Today, the company they created is worth over $4 billion. The business has done some of the best acquisitions in the outdoor industry, rolling up several iconic brands within a $4 billion empire. Let's jump into the story of Polaris. Brothers Edgar and Allen Hetteen and friend...
2 months agoΒ β’Β 3 min read