Hi,
My entire practice is built around helping people buy and sell their own business.
I've been working in this field since 2008.
If you come over to www.DavidCBarnett.com you'll find over 300 blog posts on buying, selling, financing and managing SMEs with links to playlists which now have over 250 FREE videos on these subjects. Also, dozens of links to interviews on podcasts that I've done on these subjects.
To learn more about buying a business, I recommend my online course at www.BusinessBuyerAdvantage.com . To learn about selling, visit www.HowToSellMyOwnBusiness.com where you'll also find an online course as well as a free download and links to my best-selling book called 'How To Sell My Own Business.'
To learn about improving a business to make it more valuable, visit www.EasySmallBizSystems.com
Right now I've got 7 books on Amazon along these topics as well.

And if you ever want to discuss a particular opportunity that you find, just arrange a call.

Cheers
David C Barnett

"Flipping" companies is a very rare activity, Private Equity firms are among the very few specialists of that trade.
Some stints in i-banking, PE, or Corp Dev would help, but so some P&L experience, especially in turnaround scenario.

Short of having massive personal wealth, a leveraged buy out would be the only option and that raise the bar even more in terms of the type of performance needed to make it worthwhile.

You can learn more about selling companies by actually taking action and look out potential seller or connecting with Agent who can tell you more about the business. I strongly suggest that you go on field that you already know, have a high understanding. You can negotiate a deal on the terms and conditions with the seller, doesn't necessarily have to be on the price.