Any failed searchers or failed operators? Would love to learn from you.

searcher profile

June 26, 2023

by a searcher from Stanford University - Graduate School of Business in Madrid, Spain

I'd love to get in touch with searchers that failed in either finding an adequate target or that they had trouble after acquiring a company. I'm looking for lessons learned, and understanding what went wrong.
My focus is mostly in Europe -Spain to be precise, but I'd happily engage with searchers in other regions.
Thanks in advance!

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commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA
If you haven't already, check out the Yale case "On the Nature of a Search Fund Not Working Out As Planned" and the Stanford study "Search Funds: Death and the Afterlife." The former does a particularly good job breaking down types of failure into (1) no dealer, (2) imploder (i.e. catastrophic failure of acquired company), and (3) drifter (stagnation post-acquisition). The In the Trenches podcast also just had an episode, "When Search Funds Don't Go As Planned," with three excellent case studies of failed searches.
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from University of Texas at Austin in Dallas, TX, USA
I have some war stories, happy to chat Fernando
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