Imagine that you had a massive income. More money than you need.
You could look to invest in independent businesses. Businesses that give people gainful employment. you buy the controling share. But you're not looking to make an income for yourself., You're looking to make the businesses viable and durable.
So maybe there is a small country pub/hotel. You back a young couple who have the ambition to run it. But instead of hocking themselves and their souls to the local faceless bank, you act as the source of funds.
You have a holding company that looks after a group of these businesses. You provide the financing. You organise the business functions that are a headache and an overhead for small businesses. So insurance, pensions, payroll and accounting you do centrally.
The holding company provides these services at cost. With no shareholders the holding company doesn't need to add a profit margin, but it can offer the benefits of scale
In having a variety of industries within the holding company the businesses can support each other as the different markets fluctuate. Reserves can be held centrally.
But you're still plough in any spare cash. You leverage your assets conservatively.
You're providing a quality of life and finding meaningful employment for people. You are making sure that the businesses are viable and are sustainable. You retain profits as required. When the goal is viability rather than profit the timeline and objective horizon becomes much more medium and long term focused.
As sole shareholder/majority investor the fact that you are not seeking a profit or taking out a large salary for yourself, ensures that nothing is squandered and that growth is contained to what is suitable/manageable for the overall business.
Imagine what you might put together over a period of say twenty-thirty years. How many people could be gainfully employed? How many families supported?
I'm convinced that this is a viable model.
The question is, why bother.
Society benefits from the benevolent investor. Should this not be how government investment works? There is a fundamental problem with private investors, they want a return on that investment. As a society the return that we want on our investment is a better place for our children to grow up in. It should be more than enough ...