Why can't I ?, A players mission statement. Options

[kzt]

You can't do a hostile takeover of a sole proprietorship. You have to be able to buy the controlling interest in the company. Which is kind of hard to do if the character is the sole owner, and the main asset. This would require they pay him a fortune for his company. Which would be my definition of winning.

It is one good reason not to take on vague "investors" in your fictional company.

[Ravor]

No, but in the Sixth World they could find something that he valued more then his company and force him to sell at rock bottom prices...

[kzt]

Well, sure, that is done by the mafia now. But they usually choose not to pick on people who built their company on the bodies of those they killed for money. They'd rather extort from those who won't shoot them in the face when they make "the offer they can't refuse".

[Ravor]

Although I imagine that it happens once in a blue moon today (My understanding is that the mafia tends to favor using debts as extortion as opposed to threats, but I could easily be mistaken.) by 2070 it's probably considered SOP whenever possible. Besides, if the dirty trog does shoot one of your men, then you return fire and have your Decker edit some footage showing him signing the company over.

[TBRMInsanity]

[kzt]

[Ravor]

Inperfect information makes flawed plans, if the corps realize that he is an ex-runner and that his biz is worth the trouble then they either gank him right off the bat or threaten to pull the house of cards he's built down around his ears via someone expendable. I very much doubt that a legal identity built using illegal ones would still be considered legit once the truth (Or a good enough forgery of the truth.) was discovered by the right people.

[Mercer]

Or that a legal identity will matter much when dead hookers covered in your genetic material start showing up in your trunk/yard/hot tub.

[TBRMInsanity]

The Corp Download shows all the nasty things that happen to legitimate small businesses (let alone the illegitimate ones). If you area a small fry in the big pond you tend to get eaten up. Especially if you look tasty.

[Jhaiisiin]

Having a runner (or group) go legit isn't too difficult, if you let them work for it. The games I was in, one of the players started as a former Mafia Don who went to jail for tax evasion of all things. Some years later, he's out on his ass as a Joe Nobody, and having to run the shadows. I ran an ex-Lonestar jailed for beating up the wrong corp brat. Another player was one of the don's former employees, and the last was just hired muscle. The group bonded exceptionally well, and we eventually tried to retire from the shadows and run a (mostly) legit operation in the form of a small Security firm. Tons of money later, we had a nigh impenetrable facility that we could store magical items and personal effect if needed . We even provided on site security consulting and services as needed.

Honestly, it was a friggin' blast. The game didn't start themed, but certainly ended that way.

Of course, then we turned down the wrong customer's business, who took it as a personal insult against us, and he worked overtime to shut us down. In the end, we had no choice but to separate ourselves from the company so we could take it out of the sites of everyone else. GM didn't see it that way, and destroyed the company shortly afterwards, and everyone in it. Led to a long and bloody series of vengeance runs that culminated in the death of the don and us all retiring our characters so we could start fresh.

The point of this is that it's doable, but your GM has to be willing to work with you. I agree with many others here though. If a single player wants to do something, and it pulls in the opposite direction the rest of the group is, he'll need to bluebook it outside of game time, or come around to the thinking of the rest of the group. You can't hold up the whole game just because of one person's desires.