During a recent interview with Revolt TV’s Assets Over Liabilities, Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Dame Dash said his company’s retail arm Rocawear was at one point almost sold to Tommy Hilfiger for a huge sum.
“We were about to sell to Tommy Hilfiger for like $450 million,” Dame said. “I had got jumped in Paris during fashion week, and I got the film I can show it to you and Tommy’s in my ear like ‘yo, I wanna buy the company…,’ I’m like ‘yo I got a concussion man it’s loud. Let’s talk later.’ But they did make the offer. So I woulda walked away with like $40 million, and when you put a company to get bought there’s due diligence that comes with it. So due diligence is lawyers that cost like a million dollars just to look through everything.”
He continues, “We go through all of that shit. Right before we close, your man makes an announcement that he’s launching another brand… so it devalued the brand and they left, because they were like if Jay’s not a part of it we don’t want it.'”
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While the story is disheartening, it was one of many anecdotes shared with Assets. The music mogul said elsewhere these experiences all taught him just how imperative a good sales team is for a company.
“Anything that’s run by the ads, the sales team that’s the boss,” Dame said. “Cause that’s the person that’s paying the bills. So, if you wanna get in this business, and what I’m learning is paid subscription doesn’t work. So anybody that thinks Netflix is this that and the third they just dropped 40%, they always gotta raise a billion.”
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He continued, “They might have a lot of catalog and shit right now but they’re spending a lot of bread. Tubi is up 40% it’s free tv. So free subscription work, but if you have people coming directly to you then you have to have your own sales team.”
Watch the full episode of Assets Over Liabilities below.
