When the 2008 crisis hit I was in the middle of rolling up 13 European private universities into a public company I had acquired. The concept was to trade my public shares for the shares of the target schools and do a large secondary stock offering on the NYSE. The school owners would benefit from getting a financial exit for the years they spent building their schools. My team would benefit from building a large education holding company with revenues of 250 Million Euros. The crises killed the company and I folded it up after distributing the remaining cash to investors. Four months later I acquired NTT Training in Centennial CO. Its revenues were $10M and it was bleeding cash at $50K/month. I bought its shares for $1. Its owners saw that as a better deal than bankrupting the company or continuing to feed it cash. During the three years I owned it I increased revenues by 30% and its staff without investing any money in the company. I sold it for $10M cash in 2012.
