Bernard Lietaer - The future of money

Corporation in 1992 under the HFS name. It then further acquired Super 8 for another $120 million, making it the world's largest hotel franchiser. Silverman explains that few people understand the advantages of being a franchiser instead of an outright owner. The franchiser provides advertising for the brand name, runs the reservation systems and supplies training and inspection on the franchisees. In short, the franchiser handles only the clean information aspects and is paid a hefty, predictable fee for it. It leaves all the messy and unpredictable aspects to the franchisees, such as the changes in value of the real estate, the continuous maintenance and upgrades needed the fluctuations of customer flows and all the labour-intensive components.

Silverman also made some other, seemingly unrelated, acquisitions, such as Century 21, ERA and Coldwell Banking in 1995. This made HFS the world's largest franchiser of residential real estate. Later he also acquired PHH, a conglomerate of corporate relocation and financial services, for $1.8 billion. But the dearest demonstration of the underlying strategy was the handling of the acquisition of Avis car rental for 8800 million. Even before the deal was closed, HFS announced that it would be taking the second-largest car rental company public. It would sell off Avis's 174,000 vehicles, 20,000 employees, and 540 car rental locations to the public. The only thing that HFS kept for itself was Avis's information and reservation system, which it would run for a nice predictable charge, and of course the Avis brand name for further licensing. As Wall Street has not yet named this Strategy, I propose the term 'information asset stripping'.

As a consequence, between 1992 and 1997, HFS's total revenues multiplied by a factor of 10, to s2 billion, and its net profits multiplied

by Howard Johnson. For these, $170 million was paid, and for Days Inn, B295 company public. It would sell off Avis's 174;000 twenty, to 8475 million. But the most valuable asset is the psychographic,