The fastest way to get rich is by finding a total bargain company - and then turning it around. It can be done, it has been done. But it needs nerves of steel.
Like Scottish septuagenarian Ann Gloag. Busy with her charity work she happened to find a great buy: an airport, for £1. Bit of a change from the usual knitted tea cosies and dog-eared paperbacks.
Well, to come clean, Mrs Gloag is founder and director of UK's Stagecoach transport company, and owner of two Scottish castles.
Manston Airport in Kent has been making losses for years and she has recently acquired it for £1, declaring that it will be brought up to great success and profits.
In 1980 her career was as a nursing sister, and you know how strong-willed these nurses can be when they put their mind to it. Probably dealing with doctors and matrons is good training for dealing with aviation bureaucrats.
Turning companies around is never an easy task and even the biggest players throw down their racket and walk off the court. Like Google, which bought Motorola two years ago for $12.5 billion.
It seemed like a good fit, Motorola was successfully integrated into the Android family - but these giants aren't as nimble on their feet, in highly competitive markets like smartphones.
In the end it just got too hard and this week they sold out for $3 billion, to Chinese computer company Lenovo. Maybe they should have hired in a Scottish grandmother to do the job.
There are plenty of other bargains you could chance your hand on. Like the Big Day Out festival. Strong rumours say the events have had half their expected audiences and losses could be from $8m to $15m. Now, if you made Texas franchise owners C3 an offer, they might be happy to take it and hurry on home.
Perhaps you'd rather deal with food? The story is that Thailand, with all its institutions in a tangle, has an urgent need for revenue. Supposedly the government is offering its rice stocks at slash sale prices for cash in hand. Of course then you have to work out how to get it from the hands of the farmers, soldiers and police and into your ship. Sounds too hard to me.
Well then, how about you get healthy? Each year the Turnaround Management Association votes for Australia's most successful company turnaround. For 2013 it selected Fitness First, the chain of fitness centres that operates throughout Australia, as part of an international network. In fact it's the biggest health club in the world.
But it had lost its fitness and tone. In fact it had debts of over a billion dollars. Turnaround experts, 333 Management, were brought in for urgent repairs. Unprofitable franchises were let go, gymnasium rental contracts were renegotiated, management and staff were reviewed and reduced.
In the end, TMA judges assessed a buffed and toned Fitness First as working its way back to profitability, and pinned on the medal.
If you're as smart as Steve Jobs you can take an ailing brand, breathe new life into it, turn it around and make billions. Unfortunately, most of us aren't, as Warren Buffet pointed out:
"Both our operating and investment experience cause us to conclude that “turnarounds” seldom turn," he warns, "and that the same energies and talent are much better employed in a good business purchased at a fair price than in a poor business purchased at a bargain price." Now there's someone who knows.
