Word: buying
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. He counsels would-be acquirers to be prepared for an increase in expenditures beyond the price of the acquisition. Says Zimmerman: "You'll want to improve the [acquired] company because it's now your property. So you'll probably want to buy more equipment or expand distribution or develop a new product. These are all expensive things...
Michael Lee Davis is probably the last guy from whom you'd want to buy life insurance. True, he does have some experience in the field. Davis, a.k.a. Walter Waldhauser Jr., spent most of the 1980s in prison for hiring a hit man to wipe out a friend's family in order to get a share of their life-insurance proceeds. But after being released on parole, Davis found a new line of insurance work: a largely unregulated offshoot of the business called viaticals...
...risk, guaranteed investments in viaticals offered by his Dallas-based company, First American Fidelity Corp. But authorities say the policies were fraudulently obtained for the express purpose of reselling them, an increasingly common practice dubbed cleansheeting. Davis allegedly solicited HIV-positive men to lie about their medical condition and buy multiple $50,000-to-$100,000 policies, which usually require no medical exams or blood tests. His lawyer denies the charges. As Davis awaits trial, his victims are stuck holding some $10 million worth of policies that are probably worthless...
...number of would-be viators has increased, the industry has gone into hard-sell mode, promising fail-safe, above-market returns. The harsh reality, though, is that investors are in some measure betting on the death of the sellers. If the person whose policy you buy dies in a year, it's a great investment; but if he lives five, it's a dud. "Profitability is related to the predictability of death, which has proved to be singularly unpredictable," says Bill McDonald, chief of enforcement for the California Department of Corporations, who thinks viaticals may need to be outlawed...
...trillion, you can buy...