The big issue an acquisition-minded firm must consider is whether strategically. to acquire the firm at a price that is prohibitive-in other words a price, that cannot recapture the investment to require the acquired firm's resources and management capability to sustain the on-going struggling operation to pay a premium price for a successful local company or to buy a struggling firm at a discount price to pay a price that builds in all the synergistic advantages to the acquired firm to pay a very high premium price that sends a signal to the market that the new firm has arrived