1. The CEOs lived on different continents and barely knew each other. Could they make a deal work?
2. What do you believe the biggest barriers to this two way business purchase would be?
3. What would you recommend to overcome those barriers?

Fred Schwarzer is a venture capitalist in Palo Alto, California, who was looking at a different kind of deal than VCs normally do. Schwarzer had been watching two different start-ups for months. Both had recently been jilted by investors, both were on the verge of collapse, and both were biotech companies. Schwarzer believed he had the solution to both men’s problems— combine the two companies to make an attractive investment for his firm, Charter Life Sciences. But negotiating a merger between companies on opposite sides of the globe wouldn’t be easy.