Ed Sim points out something that instinctively should be a truism: companies are bought and not sold. In other words, if you look to shop a company you reduce its attractiveness.
So what makes the playing-hard-to-get game, different for companies than products they sell. Are products sold and not bought? Does Coca Cola’s sugared water sell itself or do they have to market it?
What is happening in both cases is price – Coke play hard to get by saying that you can only have their sugared water by paying a huge premium over cost.
All companies are for sale, but the price, like a discreet ad for an expensive piece of real estate, is not published – if you need to know then you can’t afford it.
Everything has a price and surely, even companies need to proactively seduce their potential suitors.