Would you trust the owner of a company whose first business was sold under   

I would never trust such a person.From what you have said it appears that he will only siphon the money from the company to his private account.He probably would have sold the data base also for gain.I feel it is the licensing authorities who ought to take corrective action by checking the antecedents and disallowing such people from starting new companies.

I would. It doesn't dePend on what status his previous company has. I'm sure experts take note of that but there are times when the reason why he sold his company is because of financial growth. You'll be more suprised how often this happens.

i really dont think i would. when it comes to do any kind of business with any companies i am picky.

I don't believe this type of persons. I don't want to waste my time with them. What can we do if they again made the same mistake? so keeping distance with this type of persons is much more better. happy lotting.

Unfortunately there are many very smart buisness men/woman who spend their whole working lives in specializing in doing just this. They buy, sell, and start companies under different names so no-one really knows their past history. The only people who prosper from this being themselves. They dont give a second thought to the new investors, employees, or customers. It's all a money game.

The rich get richer and the poorer get poorer.
Putting a company into administration bails them out of any possible liabilty, so other people end up suffering, creditors, suppliers, taxman, and customers.

I guess it really depends on the situation and how much comes into public knowledge. I would be wary but I wouldn't class them all as being bad businesses as sometimes owners aren't very good at making a profit. A similar thing happened with some banks over here and people still use that certain bank despite it being run by a guy who almost lost many peoples savings.