Here’s a look (taken from our BarterNews archives) at the many different ways barter is used in the world’s marketplace…

• Star Wars creator George Lucas’ company Lucasfilm is quietly negotiating a huge barter deal that will see one company having the toy manufacturing rights to a new series of his upcoming films.

Offers reportedly approaching $1 billion are on the table with Lucas getting a sizable equity (ownership) stake in the toy company he eventually barters with.

• $85 million of “in-kind” computer equipment and other technology donations will be made by Intel Corp., to universities nationwide, over the next three years. (The donations, valued at retail prices, help popularize machines that use Intel chips.)

This type of trade is a typical win-win situation. Intel gets tax deductions, as well as very positive publicity, in exchange for assisting the universities with needed equipment.

• Vanity Fair is fighting the growing competition of magazine advertisers by constantly searching for ways of luring advertisers to their corner. Here’s their latest barter twist…

One of their sister publications—a nationwide chain of weekly business tabloids—is going to publish a special magazine called Businesses to Watch which will feature top-line investment information on publicly traded companies.

The barter deal is this: each participating company, placing a minimum of two national ads in Vanity Fair, gets a bartered article about the company and its investment opportunities in the new magazine.

• Hopeful business startups are looking more toward “angels” than venture capital companies for money. These “angels” are millionaires—many of them young, former technology executives.

Energetic, experienced and cash rich, they help finance and guide the next generation of Microsofts and Netscapes. In addition to supplying money, “angels” will often trade their expertise by consulting (for fees of $3,000 a day) and always will collect their payment in the form of company stock.

• Two major auto suppliers, Eaton Corp. and Dana Corp. traded entire businesses recently. Dana got Eaton’s axle and brake business in exchange for Dana’s clutch business.

Experts say it’s a sign of how globalization is reshaping suppliers, and forcing them to become more specialized to meet various automotive standards in different countries.


See BarterNews.com for hundreds of additional barter examples, as well as listings of 800 barter companies and the weekly Tuesday Barter Report (free email signup)…
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This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 2:33 am and is filed under Best & Brightest Barter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.