Pattison Group

Follow the ownership trail to find fascinating operators

Sam's research method for discovering business stories: when something interests him (e.g. Guinness World Records), he scrolls to the far right of the Wikipedia infobox to find the parent company and owner, then opens tabs tracing the full chain of who bought and sold it.

“So like Ripley's Believe It or Not has always interested me, so did Guinness Book of World Records. You and I one time talked about the business behind like certifying and like giving like a seal of approval. I got interested in that and I thought, what, what out there is kind of like that?”

Steal thisStart from any brand you find interesting, trace its parent company and ownership history, and you'll surface the operators and playbooks behind it.