Chapter 99 - Do You Even Like It? #2
"That contains confidential information."
"I didn't read it."
"Return it."
"After dinner."
I should have argued.
Instead—
I ate.
They were annoying.
Useful.
Mostly annoying.
The acquisition memo waited.
Unfortunately.
Because when I opened it later, I understood why someone had sent it to me.
The company was called Nova Polymer Manufacturing.
Not printing.
Not signage.
Not paper conversion.
Not anything comfortable.
Plastic injection molding.
Rigid packaging components.
Caps.
Small jars.
Closures.
Containers.
Some household plastic parts.
Some cosmetic packaging components.
Several custom-molded parts for local manufacturers.
Different world.
Adjacent enough to packaging to tempt me.
Far enough to be dangerous.
Perfect.
Fuck.
The numbers were ugly.
Not Villanueva ugly.
Worse.
Revenue still substantial.
Margins deteriorating.
Maintenance expense climbing.
Machine downtime increasing.
Scrap rates inconsistent.
Electricity heavy.
Molds poorly tracked.
Some molds owned by clients.
Some owned by Nova.
Some ownership records unclear.
Working capital trapped in resin inventory.
Aging injection molding machines.
Too many product variants.
Too many small-volume customers using machine setup time.
One major client demanding aggressive pricing.
Quality rejects.
Production planning weak.
Preventive maintenance inconsistent.
Shift utilization poor.
Middle management thin.
Owner still involved in too many approvals.
And unlike printing—
mistakes here were expensive.
Machine downtime expensive.
Bad molds expensive.
Rejects expensive.
Energy expensive.
Raw materials expensive.
Wrong capital decision—
very expensive.
I should have deleted the memo.
Instead—
I smiled.
No.
Not good.
The seller wanted ?24 million.
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Alone.
At my desk.
"No."
There.
Easy.
Done.
Except—
I kept reading.
Land not included.
Leased industrial site.
Machines.
Molds.
Inventory.
Customer contracts.
Brand.
Operating assets.
Some debt.
Not all.
Working-capital requirement substantial.
The asking price was too high.
But underneath the bad numbers—
machines still produced.
Customers still ordered.
Several products had healthy economics.
Quality issues were concentrated, not universal.
The company had technical people who knew the process.
Demand was real.
The owner had simply failed to reinvest correctly while also accepting too many low-value custom jobs.
I started reconstructing normalized earnings.
No.
Stopped.
Closed spreadsheet.
Went to sleep.
Next morning—
opened it again.
Of course.
I adjusted scrap rates.
Maintenance normalization.
Customer repricing.
SKU rationalization.
Machine utilization.
Resin purchasing.
Energy allocation.
Shift structure.
Management hires.
Potential machine replacement.
Mold management.
Quality systems.
I did not know enough.
Important.
So I called an engineer.
Not seller.
Independent.
Manufacturing experience.
Injection molding.
Asked him to review the equipment list and operating data.
He looked at me over video call.
"Are you buying this?"
"No."
He stared.
"What?"
"I am evaluating."
"That means maybe."
"Professionally."
He laughed.
Apparently nobody respected due diligence anymore.
The technical review was sobering.
Two molding machines probably had three to five useful years left with proper maintenance.
One needed major work.
One was inefficient enough that replacement should be considered.
Several molds were poorly maintained but recoverable.
Cooling system inadequate during peak production.
Compressed air inefficient.
Material handling too manual.
Quality inspection too late in the process.
They were catching defects after producing too many defective pieces.
Bad.
Fixable.
Fuck.
The engineer said—
"This company needs money."
"I know."
"And management."
"I know."
"And probably a new machine within two years."
"I know."
"Then why are you smiling?"
I stopped.
Was I?
Dangerous.
The seller was Mr. Tan.
Early sixties.
Second-generation business.
Wanted to retire.
Children not interested.
There.
Classic.
We met at the plant.
Different from every company I had bought before.
Louder.
Hotter.
More industrial.
Molding machines cycling.
Parts dropping.
Workers inspecting.
Bins.
Resin.
Forklift.
Tooling area.
Maintenance.
I wore PPE.
Actual safety briefing.
Good.
I liked that.
Then I saw the workflow.
And immediately found problems.
Not because I was magical.
Because problems were visible once you knew where to look.
Material traveled too far between storage and machines.
Changeovers poorly sequenced.
Production schedule ignored mold-change cost.
Quality inspection separated from machine operators instead of building more checks into production.
Finished goods staging crowded.
Maintenance area undersized.
Tooling records partly paper-based and incomplete.
One supervisor seemed to know everything.
Danger.
Single-person dependency.
I asked his name.
Engr. Paolo.
Of course.
There was always one person quietly holding half a company together.
Mr. Tan showed me the financials.
I asked questions.
He answered better than Villanueva.
Worse than Santiago.
Middle ground.
Then he said—
"We've had consultants."
"What happened?"
"Many recommendations."
"Implemented?"
"Some."
"How many?"
He smiled.
Fair.
I visited three times.
Then five.
Brought accountant.
Lawyer.
Engineer.
Environmental consultant.
Safety review.
Equipment inspection.
Mold audit.
Inventory count.
Customer concentration analysis.
Supplier review.
Electricity profile.
Everything.
This acquisition was not fun anymore.
Which should have stopped me.