(Feedback) A new Finishline type store.

[eschaider]

Not to be one of those guys who rain on parades but you might be better off not buying the business and using the Finishline name. There is a better than excellent chance that the current owner has 'problems' of his own making with other business participants in the existing venture. Some obvious examples would be unpaid vendor invoices, credit issues, potential tax issues, regulatory issues and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

When you buy a company you are be buying all its assets and all the liabilities. The assets are presumably good and saleable, the liabilities are a millstone around the businesses neck no matter the name of the owner — and significantly they do not go away with the sale of the business.

The better approach would be to start a new business with a sufficiently different name that existing creditors, suppliers, regulatory authorities etc would not confuse the good guys with the jerk who cratered a perfectly good, long standing and well respected business. Sometimes it is not smart to put the fire out. It is smarter to build a new home than attempting to save the burning property.

We can only see the ugliness that prospective buyers have visibility to. The scope and breadth of all the other mismanaged attributes and pieces of the business is nothing short of astounding.

As just a simple example, assuming there is any, there would need to be an inventory audit to determine what was is in inventory and then what was complete and undamaged, saleable goods. Everything else is fire sale material worth less than pennies on the dollar.

I both admire and applaud your efforts save this once shining icon but I think the time of rescue has long since passed and what is left today is like a tangled ball of fishing twine on the floor. Smart fishermen throw it away and buy new fishing line.

When you are in retirement or this close to it, you don't want to be making life changing bets on these sorts of 'opportunities' — mistakes are irrecoverable. Start with a clean sheet of paper. If that can't be made to work in the business plan then, Finishline definitely can not.

You have worked a lifetime for your retirement do not throw it away on a boondoggle that is avoidable.


Ed