# Can 'Muzak' be bought out?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 2, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635 "2004-12-02T03:44:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/21 "2004-12-02T19:14:18Z")
> [@Cliffy](#):
>
> Nobody buys publicly-traded companies lock, stock & barrel. It’s essentially impossible, as well as being an insane waste of money.
It happens. I used to be a stockholder of a publicly traded company that was taken over by its management team with outside financial assistance. They took the company private and sent me a check for the value of my shares. I didn’t have a say in the matter.
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### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/22 "2004-12-02T19:56:59Z")
> [@Cliffy](#):
>
> Nobody buys publicly-traded companies lock, stock & barrel. It’s essentially impossible, as well as being an insane waste of money.
>
> –Cliffy
Sure they do. Abry did. Muzak is currently a private company, owned by Abry, Clear Channel and the others I mentioned. The reason it’s a private company is that Abry and the minority investors bought it lock, stock and barrel. The majority owners of Cox are about to buy out the public shareholders. Carl Icahn has lobbed in a bid to buy Mylan Pharmaceuticals – lock, stock and barrel – for $5.4 billion. Cash. It happens all the time.
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/23 "2004-12-02T21:03:30Z")
Yeah, what a blunder on my part. I meant to say nobody does a hostile takeover by buying a company whole. Sorry.
–Cliffy, :o
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### Author:  [@Jplacer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jplacer)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/24 "2004-12-03T00:24:09Z")
If you do buy it, don’t get rid of it.
My wife was a job interview to work for Muzak as a “project coordinator.” If you want to visit Muzak’s headquarters, it is located in Fort Mill, S.C.
Also, since 1982 Muzak has only used original artists’ music.
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### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/25 "2004-12-03T00:39:49Z")
> [@Cliffy](#):
>
> Yeah, what a blunder on my part. I meant to say nobody does a hostile takeover by buying a company whole. Sorry.
>
> –Cliffy, :o
Still not sure what you mean. The whole goal of a hostile takeover is to buy the whole company. Practically speaking, you can’t without a tender offer because you have to file a form when you get over 5%.
Also, many companies have “poison pills” that make a true hostile offer prohibitively expensive. Is that what you mean?
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### Author:  [@sangfroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sangfroid)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/26 "2004-12-03T02:24:13Z")
> [@acsenray](#):
>
> Even if you could theoretically buy out the company and shut it down, what’s to stop someone else from starting a company that does exactly the same thing? There’s nothing special about the business model of getting licenses to record and transmit “genericized” versions of sound recordings. And it’s apparently pretty profitable, so how would you stop someone else from doing it?
Arrgghh! and Oy!
Good points, all. The Hydra rears it’s ugly head. This crap is here to stay, I suppose. Thanks for the responses. (and an interesting side argument on public buy-outs). Please continue. 🙂
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2004, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/27 "2004-12-03T05:43:27Z")
Muzak is lying on it’s deathbed. We now have the option to buy the music from satellite.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2004, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/28 "2004-12-03T12:09:29Z")
> [@ouryL](#):
>
> Muzak is lying on it’s deathbed. We now have the option to buy the music from satellite.
What makes you think Muzak and satellite are somehow incompatible?
[Muzak is now delivered primarily via satellite.](http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2004-08-05-muzak-cover_x.htm) In fact, Dish Network has Muzak channels. (That is, on Dish you can tune into a channel devoted to a specific kind of music sold to Echostar, which owns the Dish Network brand, by Muzak.)
Muzak has changed, too. It now has real musicians, real songs, and a less bland image of itself. It isn’t the Orchestral Lite outfit it once was.
(Interestingly, Dish Network now has Sirius satellite radio channels alongside the Muzak. I think it’s a huge improvement, myself, but Muzak isn’t that abysmal.)
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-muzak-be-bought-out/277635/29 "2004-12-09T23:06:34Z")
> [@manhattan](#):
>
> Still not sure what you mean. The whole goal of a hostile takeover is to buy the whole company.
Well, the actual goal of a hostile takeover is to get operating control. You can usually do that pretty effectively somewhere in the 20% ownership range for most publicly-traded companies. The other 80% is typically really spread out amongst small investors and/or owned by institutional investors that don’t care to participate in management if they don’t have to. (Of course various shark repellant schemes can change the rules here.)
Once you’ve got your 23% and are running the show, then of course you can consider taking it private (as you discuss upthread), but that’s a separate enterprise.
–Cliffy
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