NCML was acquired as a going concern, and TGA subsequently tapped its shareholders for an injection of capital to pay for it. In contrast, Big Brown Box was launched by Thorn Group as an on-line retail initiative, and it was internally financed.
Re-inventing itself by organic adjustments, including adding new lines of business and dropping some lines of business, is TGA's normal pattern. Acquiring a bolt-on business, and funding it via capital raising is not TGA's normal pattern.
Big Brown Box was sold soon after it was launched because it did not match the traditional Radio Rentals/Rentlo unit's profitability. There's nothing odd about that - it's just like skipping out of the radio rentals business when it lost its lustre five or six decades ago, and this may be repeated in coming years with TVs and PCs. Had the the dabbling in the embryonic Cashfirst and Thorn Equipment Finance proven to be poor lines of business, TGA would have exited them too.
If TGA wanted to get into debt collecting as a service and buying PDLs (purchased debtors ledgers) it could have done so organically - just as it has done with Cashfirst in respect to the small-loans market, and Thorn Equipment Finance in regard to equipment financing for SMEs, and as it plans to proceed with Rent-Drive-Buy.
On a different topic, TGA's H1 presentation at http://www.brrmedia.com/event/104891?popup=true&unique_ts=1353500409 is worth watching.
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