Former Trade Exchange Owner
Ray Bastarache Scores Again...Turning $50,000 Into $5.2
Million
Our
cover story of BarterNews Issue #20, published in
1989, was about Ray Bastarache, the young, ambitious, and
extremely focused 28-year-old founder of BarterNetwork Inc.
(BNI).
My
visit to Milford (CT), where I spent three days with
Bastarache, was a most noteworthy one. For the first time, I
became aware of how the second generation of exchange
owners...the younger ones...were different than their
predecessors.
It was
Bastarache who first suggested that his generation would be
the ones to truly tap the potential and riches of the
commercial barter industry.
And it
was a decade later that Bastarache did so, selling his
company to the first of the dot-com venture capital firms�BarterTrust.com.
(The sale was announced at the IRTA convention in Vancouver,
Canada, and reported on in Issue #51.)
In
that sale Bastarache, unlike his peers, again showed wisdom
beyond his years, when he chose to take all cash, rather
than the promise of a greater return in stock and options.
(Which in retrospect was the right move, as BarterTrust
ultimately filed bankruptcy.)
Never
satisfied, he was involved in other business ventures while
running BNI. Among his most profitable moves was the
purchase of a large Milford downtown office building in
1992. He picked it up from the FDIC in a foreclosure sale,
for $50,100.00.
I
vividly remember our phone conversation after the deal was
completed, when he ecstatically explained that he had
negotiated to lease some of the spaces in the underground
parking garage back to the city, which would cover most of
the amortization of the building�s loan he had just
finalized. Quite an accomplishment for a young man in his
thirties!
Bastarache quickly took action, making necessary
improvements and turning the vacant shell into commercial
offices. He then moved BNI into the building and leased out
the remaining space. Much of the improvements were done on
trade.
Last
week Bastarache, who now lives in Massachusetts, sold the
Harbor Towers Building at 1 New Haven Avenue for
$5,225,000...100 times the amount he paid for it.
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