Although KeyServ was twice ZZZZ Best's size, the two companies agreed to a $25 million deal in which ZZZZ Best would be the surviving company. The merger would have made ZZZZ Best Sears' authorized carpet cleaner, and also would have made Minkow the president and chairman of the board of the largest independent carpet-cleaning company in the United States. Soon after the KeyServ deal was announced, Minkow began making plans to raise $700–800 million to buy ServiceMaster in a hostile takeover, and planned to expand to the United Kingdom. Outside of carpet cleaning, he had begun preliminary discussions to buy Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.