Stafford & Owens

Flipping is a term used primarily in the US to describe purchasing a revenue-generating asset and quickly reselling it for profit. The term “flipping” is used by real estate investors to describe “residential redevelopment”. Redevelopment of distressed or abandoned properties or neighborhoods has sometimes been linked to malicious and unscrupulous acts in the post housing bubble era. The term “flipping” is frequently used both as a descriptive term for schemes involving market manipulation and other illegal conduct and as a derogatory term for legal real estate investing strategies that are perceived by some to be unethical or socially destructive.

Mergers and acquisitions are transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations or their operating units are transferred or combined. From a legal point of view, a merger is a legal consolidation of two entities into one entity, whereas an acquisition occurs when one entity takes ownership of another entity’s stock, equity interests or assets. From a commercial and economic point of view, both types of transactions generally result in the consolidation of assets and liabilities under one entity, and the distinction between a “merger” and an “acquisition” is less clear.