Comment by trjordan

> Wait for a beloved brand to hit financial trouble. Buy the intellectual property out of bankruptcy: the name, the logo, the trademarks.

The alternative is to shut down. That's how this whole system works: the brand can be sold, because the alternative is to cease existing.

I hate that the brand is worthwhile on its own. But: that's the point! The company invested in making the brand worth something by having it represent a promise. That promise isn't worth anything when the brand can be sold separately from the process of making the thing. The brand continues to be worth something, though.

This mechanism is a core feature of capitalism. Companies can be sold for parts, and those parts can lie to consumers. There's almost certainly a regulatory answer, but the behavior of the roll-up firms isn't unique to any particular firm. It's exactly the kind of value extraction the system is designed to support.