Note: Warren Buffett paid cash to the Pritzkers. Buffett is notoriously very stingy with shares of Berskshire Hathaway and only once did he offer shares in order to make a purchase of a company.
Harold Alfond, owner of Dexter Shoe Company of Dexter, ME., wore a fishing hat and plaid shirts, but he wasn't stupid. When Buffett came around to him, he stood fast and refused to sell unless he got shares rather than cash. After over a year of negotiation, Buffett capitulated, for the first and only time in his career of purchasing companies. Dexter Shoe was, compared to Berkshire's myriad other companies, quite small and that made it easier for Buffett to stomach giving up shares.
It was, in Buffett's own words, the worst mistake he ever made. The shoe industry was changing rapidly and even though Dexter was surprisingly at the cutting edge of the industry despite being a one-factory town in the middle of nowhere (land in Augusta and THEN drive over an hour into the woods to get there), styles were changing away from leather dress shoes, which were Dexter's niche, in favor of rubber soles and "sports shoes" that the Asian market had a grip upon. Dexter went out of business 15 years after the sale.
The happy ending is that the Alfond (and Lunder) families are still in Maine and still doing great things with the family fortunes. Sometimes the good guys win.
RE: #404: The Clean Face Of A Dirty Business