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to close the deal and save taxes. We are cognizant that the
foreign investors did not buy an entire business entity.
Instead, the foreign investors, in accord with their goal of
gaining access to the international portion of the DHL network,
entered into a symbiotic relationship with the DHL shareholders
and, in essence, became the collective majority “partners” in the
international portion of the network. To insure that any
problems with DHL (financial or otherwise) did not deprive them
of their acquired access to the international portion of the DHL
network, the foreign investors sought to remove the DHL trademark
from DHL and to include it in the entities in which they
collectively had a 57.5-percent shareholding.
In that same setting, the DHL shareholders collectively had
a 42.5-percent interest in the international portion of the
network and, ultimately, the DHL trademark. In essence, the DHL
shareholders sold only a portion of the international business.
The transaction here was not in the normal mold of the willing
buyer who purchases a single asset or business to do with as he
wishes. Here, the parties were attempting to build an operating
consensus, and each attempted to build in the safeguards and
elements that would achieve its goals and protect its acquired or
remaining combined investments or interests. The existing
shareholders and foreign investors were attempting to formulate
and participate in a corporate pool of rights and assets. As
such, the foreign investors purchased collectively fractional
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