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Comment by hcal | Hacker News Reader

I'm not advocating for banning M&As, but I think that could be addressed by only allowing acquisitions under specific bankruptcy conditions.

Again, though, I'm not advocating for that position. I'd hate to spend part of my life building a business and not be able to cash out when the time comes for me to retire.

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> not be able to cash out when the time comes for me to retire

You can perfectly cash out by selling your business to private equity, or to anyone really.

Ban on M&A just means you cant sell a social network to Facebook, but you could sell it to Microsoft, to Autodesk, to Berkshire capital, etc.

Coul Berkshire Capital buy two social networks and merge them? Could Facebook form a capital holding company and buy a social network anyway?

Is it possible for private companies to pay dividends? Let's say you retire and you own a portion of a small but thriving company. Could that company potentially provide you with dividends as a form of income?

Yes, a private company can pay dividends. Or you could loan it the money to buy out your shares and collect interest as it pays back the loan. Or a mixture of the two, with a thousand little variations on terms. I believe I ran into an employee-owned company once that had gone through some version of the loan scenario.

Possible, yes, and frequently used I’m sure, but entangles the retirees financial future with the business’s future — the retiree loses if the new owners make bad decisions, overleverage, and end up defaulting / bankrupting themselves. I don’t think it’s reasonable to force all businesspeople to retain this risk after disposing of the business concern.

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