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It could be a PR stunt... but if he is seriously considering selling
the business, a PR stunt to spread the word that it is on the market would
still be a good idea. I'll admit to being a bit perplexed that Bruce chose to
send this idea up the flagpole on eBay first. I would have
thought proposing the idea on MOPO first would have been a better way to go
-- for one thing, he's much more likely to find someone who will "run the
business exactly the way I have" on MOPO than he is in the general eBay
population. He could have used the feedback to his offer on MOPO to refine his
eBay pitch.
I know Bruce monitors MOPO, so how about it? If you're serious, then how
about providing some more details to this list, Bruce? For instance, I took
your stated sales figure of $27 million. I wonder how much of that the business
gets to keep? A rough guess based on your commission rates, what you have to pay
to eBay and a guess at what you pay for employees, phone bills and other
overhead leads me to think that maybe it is somewhere between 10% to 15%. So,
over the course of 17 years, the profits have maybe $2.7 to $4.05
million. That's about $160,000 to $240,000 a year. Very nice income indeed, but
for someone to invest $2 million out front to buy it, when at best they could
expect to make $160,000 to $240,000 a year off it? That's a tougher sell. That's
at least 8 years minimum just to make the investment back.
10% to 15% on an investment is great -- given today's rate of return
on most other investment opportunities (other than real estate) -- but
that would be for a *passive* investment. 10% to 15% return on an *active*
investment where the investor has to work at it 8 hours a day? Hmmm... But
then, perhaps it could be run as a passive investment, with Phil
taking over your position in the operation and him finding someone else to do
what Phil currently does?
Is the building you bought included in the purchase of the poster
business?
What about a non-compete agreement? Are you going to agree never to auction
movie posters again?
Or am I being indiscreet? Perhaps you are reluctant to discuss such issues
publicly. I could certainly understand that. But then, you have to expect
exactly these kind of questions that must and will be asked when you do
something like put the business up for bid publicly on eBay.
Perhaps some discreet inquiries among the existing dealer community would
have been a better first step?
Inquiring minds want to know, after all :)
-- JR
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- Re: [MOPO] 2 million dollars....and Bruce is you... JR
- Re: [MOPO] 2 million dollars....and Bruce i... Richard Halegua Comic Art
- Re: [MOPO] 2 million dollars....and Bru... Freedom Lover
- Re: [MOPO] 2 million dollars....and... Randall Petersen
- Re: [MOPO] 2 million dollars...... Cindy Nemeth-Johannes
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