Debts will follow, yes. History? Not if the new owners are different from the previous. I've watched many people take over failing businesses and turn them completely around. Profits were used to pay off existing debts before anything else, and once those debts were paid, new creditors were ringing the phone off the hook and showing up every day in the hopes of getting the 'new' company to take on new debt. Those new creditors didn't care about the history of the company under its previous management, they just wanted to make money off of the new management.