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Yamakita,
One of Buffett's main criteria for purchase is whether or not the owner is someone he'd allow his daughter to marry--it he's not "in love" with the people who run/own it, he won't touch it, no matter how good its business prospects.
There is also a $700M chain of restaurants in the south that grew in part through acquisition and the application of the "Easter" rule. Easter was the name of the daughter of the owner. If he wasn't comfortable having his daughter work there, the way the patrons treated the hired help, etc., he either walked away from the acquisition or made the changes required for the restaurant to pass the "Easter" rule.
There was one particular restaurant chain he acquire that had "happy hour every day from 4:30 to 7:30. Well, low priced drinks appeared to attract the wrong type of people who were rather disrespectful of those who brought them the drinks. So the day after the acquisition closed, he doubled the price of the drinks served during happy hour and the alcoholic part of the business dried up pronto. The wrong kind of clientele left and the change morphed the restaurants into money making, family type restaurants.
Which, by the way, now passed the Easter rule.
Best regards,
Mark A. Peterson |
