Option 7: The Takeover Gambit

You bought the fire‑damaged house and pulled the neighbourhood in to watch the renovation. Reporters stream new LED lights bouncing off fresh limewash; workers cheer posted wage tables and volunteer for safety‑drill demos on TikTok. Compliance scores vault to ISO elite, and a university ethics panel invites STG to keynote. Banks, however, run the numbers twice: leverage now sits at 1.9 × EBITDA, and interest coverage wriggles under covenants.

Thirty days in, integration overruns slice €2 million from reserves and hold EcoLux output at eighty‑five percent. A clutch of buyers grumbles about delayed lookbooks—the preview catalogues they rely on to plan orders—yet they stay, intrigued by sneak-peek footage of a fibre lab already spinning solvent-free yarns two months ahead of the field. Engineers boast of tensile tests that beat legacy viscose, while HR rolls out leadership academies for former line supervisors. Investors respect the vision but flag one uncompromising reality: every new purchase order now passes beneath a banker’s microscope.

Ownership grants unrivalled latitude to dictate tomorrow’s standards, but the runway of goodwill is matched by a runway of debt. Your next material buy must persuade lenders that ethical autonomy and disciplined cash flow are not opposing threads but a single strong weave.

Owning Golden Needle gives STG early access to solvent‑free spinning technology, which proves advantageous in later material decisions. Ownership grants control, but leverage magnifies risk; the real proving ground will come as lenders, buyers, and designers converge on the material front.