Peter
Planet Popcorn and the Case of the Missing $400,000
The Profit episode about the popcorn business brought back memories from my years in selling businesses. Let’s just say that some business sellers are less than forthcoming with the facts.
Planet Popcorn sells a variety of popcorns at fairs and farmer’s markets across southern California. However, its main cash cows are two stands at Downtown Disney. As you may have already guessed, this is a cash business and that means a challenge for anyone interested in getting a clear picture of just how well it’s doing, as we will see.
Things get off to a shaky start for Marcus and the owner. Initially she wants to use Marcus’s money to open a creperie. Marcus wants nothing to do with a new venture. When they later go to scout potential locations for a permanent popcorn store, she reveals that she is still fixated on opening a creperie. I don’t know how Marcus could have made his feelings any clearer on the subject: No freaking creperie!
The Profit: Jacob Maarse Florists
The second episode of The Profit about Jacob Maarse Florists of Pasadena, CA ends with one of the most unforgettable displays of immaturity (and worse) that you can ever expect to witness. While Hank Maarse isn’t the first or the last person to try to weasel out of an agreement, he certainly made the situation far worse by doing it on camera for a nationally televised reality series. People who renege on deals usually attempt to do so in private with minimal witnesses in case it ever ends up in court.
In a nutshell, Hank inherited the family florist business after his entrepreneurial father Jacob died in 2010. The business quickly turned into a money loser under the lackadaisical leadership of the 49 year old man-child. The only thing that has saved the business to date are a number of substantial cash infusions by Hank’s long-suffering mom. She does this not so much for Hank as for the legacy of her late husband.
Philip Green’s Growth Strategy
Philip Green, owner of, amongst much else, British Home Stores, reached billionaire status faster than anyone else in British history. Today he is worth GBP 3.6 billion and is reckoned to be the country’s fourth richest citizen.
This is the first biography of a man whose aggressive business tactics and brash lifestyle have transformed the staid image of British retailing, and who is likely to remain in the headlines for as Topman long as his ultimate prize, Marks and Spencer, continues to elude his grasp. A middle-class Jewish boy from North London who left school at fifteen, Green started and failed with four businesses before he made it with his fifth venture, Jean Jeannie, which he sold to Lee Cooper for an enormous profit that set him on the road to fame and fortune.
Self-made New York billionaire John Catsimatidis explains how he started his grocery empire.
The summer after completing high school his mother got him a job at a local supermarket where he continued working while attending NYU. After a few short years, one of the owners, Tony, sold John his stake in the store. The financing was simple. As John describes it, “He sold me half the business for ten thousand dollars in notes and said, ‘pay me whenever you have it.'”
Within four years Catsimatidis had opened up ten more stores, paid off Tony, and made his first million. Which just goes to show that a dynamic ambitious person can take the smallest and sleepiest of businesses and turn them into something substantial over time.
Takeover tycoon Carl Icahn on 60 Minutes
This interview with Carl Ichan aired in late 2012. As one would expect from 60 Minutes, it’s very insightful. You gain some interesting insights about both the man and how he makes money.
Be sure not to miss the shots of his office overlooking Central Park.
Recent Comments