Buying a company that owns an asset or holds a license is a reasonable way to obtain said asset or license. Nothing wrong with that.

Suppose that you are running a company that stores PII, in order to... Generate credit reports that banks and car loan places can use to evaluate your credit-worthiness.

Suppose (Shockingly!) that you operate in a country with strict regulation about how you can store sensitive PII. Suppose that in order to operate your business, you need to be in compliance.

Your business processes have to pass regulator audits - you need to limit access to your data, you need to keep it encrypted while at rest, you need to take steps to prevent exfiltration...

Suppose that you're in compliance, you are licensed to operate with PII and life's great.

Now, suppose that another company, called FaxEqui buys you. They come in, institute all their own business processes, open up all customer data to interns, change all passwords to admin/admin, unencrypt your database, and have a direct link between your PII, and the internet. None of this is in compliance with the regulatory environment.

The regulator takes one look at this, and pulls their license. They FaxEqui then proceeds to write to anyone who will listen, to complain about how unfair it is that 'their' license was revoked.

The point of this licensing process is to audit and control a company's internal processes. Buying a company that has such a license does not magically bring your own internal processes into compliance.

If you're talking about a license in the sense of a right, like a copyright or patent license, or a license to drill for oil somewhere, then yes. But this is a license in the sense of regulatory approval of a specific organisation, which is not something it's proper to buy and sell. You can't buy someone's driving license, gun license, medical license, license, etc.

In the insurance field "acqui-license" deals, like "acqui-hire" in tech, are not impossible or even necessarily discouraged. Every US state has its own set of regulations for who can be issued a license to sell insurance, and usually it's easier from a bureaucracy perspective to maintain the license once you have it than it is to get a new one. So buying and selling of companies solely for their existing insurance licenses is a thing.

Sure, though The UK is another regulatory regime again.

Not sure the drivers license is a fair metaphor. That makes some sense: the government is saying this particular individual appears to be capable of driving. People change (thus the need for periodic renewals) but usually don’t change so dramatically that they can no longer drive.

But how does regulatory approval work with institutions? Institutions are ever changing, and like the ship of Theseus, eventually the original company will replace all of its employees, management, and even processes.

So what triggers a need for renewed regulatory approval? If the original company switches out 50% of its workforce it can keep its license, but if the owner changes suddenly the license is invalid. How does that make sense?

Typically, every year, or every X years, you undergo an audit, that verifies that your processes are still compliant.

Yes, the edge case of "Fire everyone and hire some other people" does not trigger re-licensing. Also, hardly anybody does this, in order to do anything other then downgrade employees to contractors, or union-bust. That's because 99% of the time, companies, even with a lot of turnover, don't change their business processes out of the blue.

99% of the time, when they are being acquired for their licenses, they do.

It's common in many parts of the US to buy a liquor license from an existing establishment.

And generally there is a process that needs to be followed as well--public posting, public comment, etc. Any changes like operating hours, operating address, etc. means you have to go back to your council/commission.

Liquor licenses rarely just transfer unless you bought the whole business and didn't actually change a thing.