What would you do in my shoes?

Im curisous to hear what you guys might do given the same circumstances.

Ill start from the beginning - you have any of those family friends where your families have been friends for so long theyre like family? Well, some of my family friends have had an auction business, and its been in theri family for almost 100 years.. i started noticing it was dying off, getting less market share. At the same time I had been thinking about jumping into the auction scene as part of what I already do.. it just made sense to add that to my little ecosystem of companies.. but... I didnt want to step on anyone's toes, especially not these guys, it would definitely cause a rift.. So, I scheduled a meeting with them and we talked, I brought them on under us, they use my licenses other than the auction license, and I help market them (not me personally, but the team we have for marketing) i charge just enough to cover the expenses.. when i need to run things through the auction side I dont get charged..

Its been frustrating for me because the one in charge of the auction company (an aries).. i mean, to condense it all down, he sucks at business. Just terrible. Ive had to save a few of their deals because he flat sucks.. when there is a problem he cannot think on the fly and pivot to a mutually agreeable outcome.. he's very dry. His partner, a sag, is the brains, he has all the licenses, degrees, teaches the licensing classes, does all the mental and physical work, while the aries has final say..

The frustrating part is they want to grow. I want them to grow. In some ways theyre hampering my style by being stagnant. So, last week a few of them wanted a secret meeting with me to discuss me starting a whole new auction company under my business name, so would get the recognition of my existing businesses, but would be its own separate entity legally.. which is what i planned on before I just brought them on under my licenses. But they want to bail on the family business and join with me.. which, on its face sounds great, I get complete control fo growth, these guys are great at the tasks they do, very knowledgeable, they only lack at the actual business side of things, which is where they trust me. However, they dont want the Aries to come on with us. I cant figure out a way to bring him on without these other guys flat refusing.

Honestly, the only reason why I want to bring him on is because i kinda feel bad everyone else wants to leave him out in the cold. Sure, he'll still have the other business we'll be absorbing the majority of, but he'll be starting from scratch. I like the guy, but i dont work with him, so maybe he's just burned thes guys out so much that i just dont know what i dont know. But, he's an old family friend, and I know the optics some people will put on this.

Ive tried propping their business up, but without control of it, at best I can make suggestions and hope they take our advice.

Ideally I could get everyone onboard, but the rest of the group is adamant that they wont join.

I will be starting an auction company now that I know theres trouble in their organization, and honestly, the guys wanting to do it are some all-stars in that world.

Not really looking to implode a friendship with someone as interconnected as the aries, because its going to ripple out far beyond just us. But at this point i really dont see any other way.. its clear that company is going down soon, the rest if the guys are kinda done with the, aries it seems.. this is something I wanted to do before this all came to light, I just didnt because that was their space. Not crazy about all the shit im going to get about the fallout. And me being a greedy asshole who threw this guy out, and thats only going to get worse as we grow it..

What would you do?

I would go forth with it and leave the Aries guy out of it. He hasn’t really earned his way in from the sounds of it.