MI310: A Serial Acquirers Deep Dive w/ Chris Mayer

24:35And now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with. With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros. The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more.

25:06To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. And for a limited time, you can use code stocks15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. All right, back to the show. So now that we know some of the attributes of successful serial acquirers, let's get into what exactly makes a good acquisition. What are the characteristics that the acquirer should look for in the businesses that they're acquiring so the acquisition will be value-creative to the shareholder? Well, this is where there's a lot of different ways to do it.

25:45And so, all the different serial acquirers have their different targets. Almost all of them I've seen have some sort of, say, target margin that they're looking for. They'll talk about sales growth. They'll even talk about minimum size. So I don't know that there's a real definitive answer there because there's a lot of ways you can do it. You can do it with higher margin businesses. You can do it with lower margin businesses. You can do it with capital light. Most of them are trying to be capital light. So you're talking about businesses that don't require a great deal of reinvestment capital expenditures just to keep going.

26:17That's another attribute tends to be. What I like is also when the CEO acquires do the deals without issuing shares. I don't like the ones that are issuing a lot of shares to fuel their acquisition. That's kind of maybe more of a red flag where they use a lot of leverage. Most of them are, if you're talking about like, say, debt to EBITDA two and a half times or less, and they can float around a lot and can vary a little bit on the industry. Like Brown and Brown is one I own. Every time they do a big deal, you'll see their kind of net leverage kind of swells a little. Like they just bought last year, they bought GRP in the UK.

26:49So their leverage is going to swell up a little, but then come down. In 2018, they bought Hayes, which was the largest acquisition they did at that point. And the same thing, you could see their leverage pop up a little and then kind of come down. Heiko just bought Wencore, and their leverage is going to pop up. But I'm talking about when you're looking at the company over a longer period of time, what's kind of normal leverage. For me, in less than two times, debt to EBITDA is a good number. And I think most of them have some kind of targets like that. So where they get in trouble is issuing shares, leverage, doing too many deals, and not being disciplined about what they pay.

27:23Those are kind of where they screw up. How about synergies? Do you actually like businesses that are synergistic with the acquired business? Or do you like the ones that it doesn't really matter that much? Yeah, I like the ones where it doesn't really matter that much. I mean, in my experience, true synergies are kind of hard to find, really. It's a number that gets thrown around a lot. people talk about not a number. It's a word that gets thrown around a lot. Managing teams like to talk about synergies, but real synergies are kind of hard to find when they happen. Great. It's wonderful. But I prefer that the deal not depend on that, not depend on synergies.

27:59And what about aligning incentives between the acquired and the quarry? What are your favorite models for that to look for? This is a great question because this is one area where they're different. So some serial acquires will buy out 100 % and just use some kind of earn out structure. That works. And lots of companies use that. Technion uses earn out. Brown Brown uses earn outs. And then there's the other model more where they don't buy 100 % of what they're buying. They buy 70 % or 80 % and they leave the management team in with some skin in the game. That's like the Heiko model. They do that.

28:32And that works very well too. At Lifco, most of the time they're buying out everything, although they have had some deals where they don't buy out the whole. I don't know that I have a preference one way or the other, just that different models and management teams make different ones work. They both can work very well. And I own companies that do it both ways. So I think, again, this is one of those that falls more along the lines of maybe personal preference, but also whether that particular serial acquirer is successful with whatever method it's chosen. We could sit here and imagine ways in which earnouts could fail, somebody not do it well, or the other way.

29:06So you take out 70 % of the management team and you think You've got them interested with 30%, but they're not. Now, what do you got? Now, you've got a problematic partner that owns 30 % of the equity. So both can fail and both can work. So this might also be personal preference, but what about management? So once an acquirer acquires the business, do you prefer management stay in place or do you like when they just buy the business and then can find their own management afterwards? It feels better when the managing team stays. I know that that, I would prefer that that not be acquirements. So for example, I remember talking to Pear, the CEO at Lifco, and he told me, you know, they underwrite every deal as if the management team walked away right after, you know, because that's kind of the worst thing that happens.

29:48You have to think that, can you run the business? Do you have people and all of that? So I think that's a good way to approach it, but it feels better to have the existing management team run it at least for a couple of years. I don't expect them to stay there forever. This is how the opportunity is created. Why is Technion able to buy some of these nice businesses? It was because the people own them, started them, ran them for 20 or 30 years, want to retire. So you can't expect to buy that and then have that person stick around for 10 years. It's just not the way it's going to work. So a common problem many serial acquirers face as they scale is a problem of growth.

30:20When you're smaller, a small acquisition can still move the needle. But as you grow cash flows, you find larger businesses that you have to reinvest your cash into. The theory is that as these deals get larger in size, it becomes harder to apply your strict acquisition criteria to larger acquisitions. I'd like to get your thoughts on how some of the larger serial acquirers like Constellation Software are going to be able to sustain their high returns on capital while doing deals in, say, the sub$700 million range. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a big concern with serial acquirers is as they scale, it gets more challenging.

30:54And like a lot of the Swedish serial acquirers like in Indutrade or Lagercrons, as they got bigger, they did bigger deal. It's not necessarily they did more, they just did bigger. So that's interesting. But you do see a certain fade over time. As you get larger, the return on that capital starts to kind of tail off and as you would expect, but you can still create a lot of value. If you're starting, let's say Constellation started at 30%, 35 % return on invested capital, it's got a lot of room to come down and still create value if they're putting large amounts of capital to work. So it's both things that you want, returns and the amount of capital you can put to work.

31:35But yeah, Constellation is a really interesting case and I own it. And it's always the question when I talk to other shareholders, it's the thing we talk about. It's what does Constellation 2.0 sort of look like? How can they continue to do what they're doing? How sustainable is it? What does it look like? I think we're getting a peek at it. I mean, they did the deal where they bought, what was it? Blue Optima from Black Knight, which was an incredibly good deal for them. And before that, they did the Allscripts deal, which was a very large deal. Jury's still out on how exactly that deal's coming out.

32:07But yeah, it will remain to be seen with Constellation, whether they can continue to do it or not. And they're still doing some of the smallest acquisitions too. So it's funny to have a company in that market cap and they're still doing these little tiny, tiny deals. And based on research that I've done, that I've talked to people in that business, I mean, they're still, they have 100 ,000 plus targets that they track. Not all those are actionable, of course, but there still seems to be, and there's more copycats and everything. So there still seems to be a lot of opportunity and we just have to wait and see.

32:39But this is the big concern with serial acquires. And once they get that big, it gets harder and harder to find ways to deploy that capital, larger and larger sums, but it can be done. I mean, I remember people talking about Berkshire Hathaway and how it was too big 30 years ago. So it still had a lot of legs left and look at constellations as tiny compared to that. So they're among the best corporate capital allocators on the planet. So if you wanted to pick someone to solve that problem, you would pick them, I think. So I feel good that they're going to figure it out. We'll see. And you would know much better about these deals than I would.

33:17Are they basically still applying their same acquisition criteria to small deals, just to larger deals? Or what differences are you seeing? As they go up, the IRR hurdle comes down. There's a sliding scale there, a smaller deal. I don't remember the numbers offhand, but let's say it's like 30 % return required on a deal, the smallest deals. And as you step up on revenue, that hurdle rate comes down. So they acknowledge the reality of that. You're not going to be able to put together big sums of capital at the same IRR that you can hoover up these tiny, tiny VMS businesses. So from my research on serial acquires, the general observation I've made is that organic growth rates tend to go down as the business scales up.

33:59So how do you incorporate organic growth rates into your analytical process? Yeah, I mean, I focus more on total growth and I don't want organic growth to be negative. So there you go. You know, Constellations has been very successful with organic growth rates of low single digits. So I think, you know, it's nice to have high organic growth rates. Of course, it makes everything work better. It makes the model work better, but you don't have to have it. Total growth is more important. And then secondarily, you want that organic growth to at least be kind of positive. I think the market does tend to punish companies that have negative organic growth.

34:31And I think organic growth is interesting to keep an eye on anyway, because it's kind of like a clue as to how management or how much attention is paid to a business once it's acquired. So it's kind of like if the management team does pay attention to the businesses after they acquire them, you tend to see better growth rates. It reflects more of the attention paid there. I think, I mean, as a generalization, I think that's probably a good indication that organic growth is a kind of an outcome of paying attention to how the businesses are managed once you acquire them. And from your research on serial acquires, are you aware of management incentivization programs that are looking for organic growth?

35:12I know Topicus, I think Dayan, who was the former CEO, he is incentivized to get organic growth. But do you see that in other companies as well? No. No, I have not. A lot of times targets are based on EBITDA or some version of that. It's interesting, not many even have a per share component. Technion does. They have earnings per share, double every five years is their goal. I think there's another serial killer. I think Velati, I remember seeing actually has a per share requirement for something. So there are some out there like that, but I don't recall seeing specifically organic growth being called out.

35:49That may be part of the incentives for the individual subsidiaries. We just don't see it necessarily as investors at our level. So financing mergers and acquisitions is very important to successful deals. Most deals are financed by cash, bank debt, or the issues of equity. Cash is probably the best source of financing as it carries the least amount of risk. but many great serial acquirers have more ideas than they have cash on their balance sheets. If they can maintain their acquisition criteria, then leveraging with debt or equity can be the right move. What method of financing do you find the most valuable for the acquirer?

36:23The best are the ones that are able to finance their acquisition program entirely with their own cashflow, their own operating cashflow. And so just as operating cashflow comes in, they reinvest it and operating cashflow grows over time and they're reinvesting it. that's a beautiful thing. Some leverage in there I think is good. Some small amount of leverage, juices and returns a little bit without really any risk. I'm okay with that. And you just, like we talked about before, the excessive leverage, you can get into trouble. And I don't like issuing shares so much either, just because that's a very, very expensive way to buy things.

36:57I always think about Warren Buffett talking about his Dexter shoe where he issued shares to buy it. And he tells us about how expensive it is in later years. And so I think of that too. I think, well, I look at the shares as precious. And so what are they going to be worth 10 years from now? And then how expensive is that acquisition going to really look? So I would hesitate to issue shares even when the shares appeared to be pretty rich. I would still even be reluctant then. I would try to do it any other way before I issued shares. Yeah. I ran the numbers on that actually just a few days ago and the shares that he issued were worth$12 billion.

37:33So yeah, going back, you previously mentioned debt to EBITDA that you kind of liked around, or sorry, yeah, two and a half times or so. Is that kind of a general number that you like to stay below for some of these? Yeah. General number. I mean, most of the companies I have are leveraged well below that or like one point something. But then again, they sort of flex like an accordion if they happen to do a bigger deal and I'm okay with that. I want them to do it, do those deals when they can. I mean, it was great that Heiko bought Wencore, I think, and bought the number two player in PMA. And so that should be a good transaction.

38:06I thought it was great when Brown Brown bought GRP, gives them a substantial foothold in UK and grow that business. So I'm okay with that. And I know the management teams will bring that leverage back down in a couple of years, it will be back down below those, well below that 2.0 target or whatever. And do some of those businesses that are using debt as leverage, do they ever find trouble getting access to debt? Right now, obviously, interest rates are high and debtors aren't exactly running out to find people to give money to. Is that a problem or is it just the fact that they have such good operating results in the past that it's easy for them and good relationships, it's easy for them to get that debt?

38:45Yeah, I would say more of the latter. For the ones I'm involved in, it's easy. It's easy for them. They're not particularly leveraged. they generate a lot of cash and they have a track record. So yeah, I would say it's been easy. But I always say, I remember a 2008 crisis where there are lots of companies that had, you thought were decent balance sheets. And then suddenly when credit dried up, even decent balance sheets became problematic. So scars from that made me very picky about balance sheets. And that's partly why I am the way I am. And I try to avoid that leverage.

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42:37That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash tip-finance. All right, back to the show. So you mentioned just previously that you don't really like businesses that are issuing equity for acquisitions. Are there any times that you would make a exception for businesses that do that? or is it kind of just if they have a history of doing that, you're basically just completely red flagging it and you're out? If they have a history of doing it, yeah, I'm probably not going to be very interested in that. But there are cases where it can make sense. You know, Technion recently did a small raise, for example, just to kind of bridge because they had such a robust pipeline.

43:17You know, they were a little concerned that they might have some of these things all come back and they wouldn't be able to necessarily make good on all of them. So it was just some money to get just a little bridge to get them across. and I don't really expect them to issue equity again. So I think there can be certain circumstances like that where it may make sense. You know, Heiko issued a tiny sliver of shares when they did the Wencore deal. You know, I don't know if it made sense necessarily or not, but, you know, for an asset like that, if the other side is demanding shares, then it might make sense to get really a premium asset.

43:50But, you know, this is again, more my personal preference because I know there are some serial acquires that have been reasonably successful and share issuance is a regular part of what they do. But, you know, I don't like that also because if you become dependent on that, you may find that you have to issue shares at a time where it's not so convenient. You know, markets are not always so buoyant and friendly. So if you make that a regular part of your plan and then we go through a period of time where share prices are low, then it's going to mess up your little algorithm. So European serial acquires seem to be doing a lot of things right.

44:21Since you have Topicus, Technion, and Lifco in your portfolio, I think that you might have some insights into their special sauce. What is it about European and specifically Nordic countries that seem to be producing many high-quality cereal acquirers? It's a good question. With Sweden, there's a whole bunch of them over there, as you know. So why is that? I remember when I went there, actually both times when I've been and I've talked to people, I usually like to ask this question. I don't know if I ask anymore, but I did for a while because I was trying to figure out, well, what's the deal? Why are there so many of these things over here?

44:51And I got several different answers. I don't know that any one of them is right, but there may be some truth in all of them. So, I mean, I can just share some of them with you and see. You know, one of them is that there's just more of a sense of trust in Sweden, just among Swedish people. And so, it makes that decentralized model more workable. And so, it's more of a natural thing to happen there. And the other is, you know, you do have Bergman and having started the first kind of Swedish serial acquire, was very successful and had spinoffs, AdTech, Lagricrons, and so forth. And then naturally there were companies that sprouted up in Stockholm that copy that.

45:27So it's kind of like maybe what you call like a Silicon Valley effect, I think of it as. You know, you just happen to have tech companies all start there and then there's other ones that just start around it. And before you know it, it becomes a hub. And so that Stockholm has become kind of the hub for that. Might also be part of it is that I've heard that part of it may be also that Swedish law is it's really easy to acquire companies there. You know, you could have a, your documents might be 10 or 12 pages just to acquire a company in Sweden. You go to the UK, there's lots of lawyers involved and it's hundreds of pages or the US.

45:58So there's something, there might be something that. So a combination of all these factors led to this proliferation of serial acquires in Sweden. So yeah, that may be one reason why. So one thing that stood out to me when I've been looking at documentation of many great European businesses is the transparency in insider ownership compared to many North American documentation. Why do you think their levels of transparency in that department are so much greater than in North America and other geographies? I don't know. Some of it is, you know, there's more family-owned businesses over there. And so they naturally disclose those things.

46:34But otherwise, I really don't know why that is. So in a presentation by Johan Steen of Technion, he had a great section where he discussed the importance of adjusting as the business scales. For instance, managing 50 subsidiaries down the road will be a lot different than managing the 26 that they have right now. What are some of the key personnel adjustments that you've noticed must be made as a serial acquirer grows successfully? Yes, this is a question I talked to many of them about. And Technion's answer is refreshingly honest. They'll just, they say they don't know and they'll see, you know, when they, when they get there.

47:08For now, it's Daniel and Yuan and they can handle it for, I'd say, probably at least five more years before, maybe more before it becomes an issue for them because they're pretty small. But like, you know, I've talked to like Per Lifco about this and the big change is you have to find more people that can be involved in the capital allocation role. And that's difficult. Like to find good operators, people know businesses and can run businesses, that's easier. But then to find those people who then also are good capital allocators, That's harder to find or you have to grow your own. So that I'd say is the big change.

47:43You have to bring along other capital allocators within your organization so that it can't just be one guy doing the whole thing or two guys running, two people running the whole thing. You have others involved. I think that's the biggest change. And so for a business such as Constellation Software, which has tons of people making these decisions, how have they created, I guess, a model or education system that is doing such a good job of this? And how can other companies use it? Well, I think with them, because they're buying the same kind of businesses across all those different silos. So, you know, VMS, vertical market software businesses, they know there's certain, you know, they know what SG &A should be.

48:27They know what sales and marketing should be. They know all the different costs and what they should be. And they can apply that template across all their acquisitions. Maybe not all now, because now they're doing other things, as we talked about. But the old bread and butter anyway. Whereas somebody like, you know, a LIFCO or Swedish industrial acquirer can't use a model like that because they're acquiring businesses in different industries. So it's kind of like there's pros and cons to it. And on the one hand, you could argue and say, well, somebody like a LIFCO has a much greater TAM than Constellation.

49:00There's not any restraint there. So then they're not confined just to vertical market software. But then the downside is they can't just have one template and train people to look for these things. They have to have someone who's a little more balanced or knows businesses and can value and acquire a lot of different kinds of businesses. So that's kind of the tug between having a serial acquirer that's in one industry and they can have one model that they just apply over and over versus someone who can acquire across different industries. And both can work. And both can work. And so let's invert.

49:38What are some personnel red flags to be aware of when it comes to serial acquirers in regards especially to scaling up? Well, I mean, you know, there's a lot of turnover. That's always a red flag. You want to know why that is. the other thing is you can sort of watch the returns on the businesses if you have returns that are declining that can be an indication something's not right even though management saying that that things are okay if you're seeing it in numbers you know things seem to be deteriorating that can be an indication there's some kind of problem with their they're having some problem scaling that it needs to be figured out so those are a couple that i think of offhand.

50:16But on the outside, it's not necessarily always so easy. This is why you really got to have confidence in management team and their process and have great confidence they can do it. So let's turn our focus to the competitive advantages that serial acquires possess. M &A isn't a new business model, but as businesses like Bergman & Beving, Lifco, and Constellation have shown, it is possible to shine brighter than competition in public and private markets. How have some of these businesses been able to continue doing what they do for decades while the majority seem to fail? I mean, some of it is that there are permanent owners of these businesses.

50:50I think that's an advantage, particularly over private equity buyers and other acquirers of companies that aren't necessarily going to be permanent owners of that business, but are maybe looking to eventually flip it for a profit. So that's one advantage. Some of it is the model itself. So I remember struggling with this in the beginning too. What's the competitive advantage of Swedish Serial Acquire Holdco? And it isn't necessarily obvious at the Holdco level. Or think about somebody like Brown and Brown as an insurance broker. There's other insurance brokers. They all do the same kind of similar things.

51:23But once Brown and Brown gets the customer, then it's like a 95 % renewal rate. And it creates this cash annuity almost like a software company. So yeah, they fight like heck to get the business. But But once they get it, they keep it. And that's kind of true in the industry generally. So that's what makes it attractive. And I think with this other serial acquirers, the Swedish serial acquirers, the industrial Swedish serial acquirers, it's similar. They're owning, once they have the business, then they have it. And a lot of these businesses are small niches. They do things that aren't necessarily so easy to compete with at that level.

51:58So it's not that the competitive advantage is necessarily the whole incoming level, but it's in the companies that they own. It can be at the whole level too. I mean, there are cultural things that are hard to copy and there are approaches that are hard to copy. But I think a lot of it comes down to the businesses that they're investing in. Venture capital and private equity are obviously competitors in the M &A space. What structural disadvantages does venture capital and private equity have versus public competitors like these Swedish serial acquirers? Well, I think the big disadvantage, which we just talked about a little bit, was that they're not buying for keeps.

52:33And so that can matter. I mean, when you're looking to buy, if an entrepreneur is looking to sell his business, yes, there's a certain group of entrepreneurs who are just going to take the highest bid and they don't care. And in those cases, the VCs and private equity and all those, they'll probably win those deals. But for some of them where they're really concerned about the legacy they leave and they're concerned about the employees and they want their business to continue, that's where something like a Technion or a Lyftco would be a more valuable home, would be a better home for that business.

53:00So it really depends on the kinds of businesses. And certain businesses are not necessarily going to be that interesting to VCs anyway. They're going to go after companies that have really high organic growth, big markets, whereas Technion and Lifco can buy just some small, modest business that may not be maybe growing 5 % a year or whatever. But that would be a perfectly good fit otherwise for those acquirers. So it kind of depends a little bit. But the other thing is that serial acquirers, we may see this now because with interest rates a lot higher than they were a year ago, I'm very interested to see how the private equity buyers, what happens to that pool of money?

53:40Is there less competition now for purchasing companies because they depend heavily on cheap debt? And some of the serial acquirers themselves will use a lot of leverage. They're going to be challenged too. If their model depended more on having access to low cost debt, then that model is going to be challenged now too. I'm interested to see that. And then I'll also be curious to see if higher rates have an impact on the prices of the businesses themselves, whether they come down a little or not. We'll see. And then looking at the other side, where would VC and private equity have advantages over some of these serial acquirers?

54:17Well, they definitely have an advantage over any situation where the money talks above everything else because they're going to be able to write the biggest check and the serial acquirers are going to be disciplined about what they pay and they're not going to get involved in those. So any kind of high growth, sexy company involved in anything like that, those companies have the advantage. So a popular question I come across on Twitter is what makes one serial choir better than another? And you kind of just touched a little bit on this, but we can get into it a little more detail. So since many of the businesses seem to be running similar playbooks, it can be hard to differentiate which one deserves your capital over another.

54:53What do you think differentiates some of your businesses, such as say a Lifco or over an AdTech or Topicus over Vitech? Well, one is the, it's the people involved and there are some differences in strategy, whether you are okay with it or not. So Vitek is an interesting one that they have issued shares in the past and you're either okay with that or you aren't. And their targets are a little different. I think Vitek has higher organic growth rates generally than Constellation. So they're going after slightly different companies there. So I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of little particulars that kind of add up and makes them different, makes one serial acquire different from another.

55:29And you just have to sort of compare them all from top to bottom and how they're, because I know what you're getting at and it's popular with people who haven't done a lot of work in it and then they'll say, you know, why is this one, you know, why is this one better than that one, basically what you're asking. And it seems like it just opens the door to so much, you know, you have to talk about so many different things. It's not like so obvious that you can just jump out and say, well, they do this and these guys do that. It's a lot of little things. And yeah, I guess the people, incentives, kinds of companies, are business, how kinds of businesses they're acquiring, how disciplined they are about it, how they finance them.

56:04A lot of decisions and a lot of ways to do it. And so, you have to find the ones that have the good recipes, but sometimes there can be subtle differences. I agree. And the common answers I usually give are cultural and you've instilled that in me a lot just from reading a lot of your stuff, but culture matters a lot. And especially if you're running these decentralized models, because you're essentially when you buy them, you're entrusting that the culture that you're buying is going to be just as good or hopefully maybe even better than the culture that you have now. So I think a lot of businesses just, they can't do that.

56:37I agree. And also, the culture matters if you're a long-term holder. I mean, if you're going to own this business, you're thinking of owning the business for a decade, then that becomes very important. If you're just looking to buy something for a year, because the PE is lower than it's been over the last five years and you're playing some, that's different and you don't care so much about the culture, but you're going to own it for a very long time, then these things really matter and they can have a great impact on return over a decade. Absolutely. So many of the best serial acquirers maintain levels of returns on capital that most business owners can only dream of.

57:08What is it about the acquisition criteria of many of the best serial acquirers that allows them to maintain such high levels of capital efficiency? Well, I mean, some of it is that they're paying a good price. That helps their returns right off the bat. And two, they're usually buying things where they feel like they can at least grow the business or increase margins over time. So that's going to help their returns as well. And staying with businesses that occupy certain niches where there's perhaps less competition and they can envision what the company might look like five, 10 years down the road.

57:43Those are all important considerations. And I think those are some key ones. So as a long-term investor, your intent is to hold onto your businesses for a long time. So on a quarterly and yearly basis, how are you monitoring serial acquirers to ensure that they continue performing at high levels? Well, you always track the acquisitions, how that's going. Although you don't worry too much about quarters can be light. And then sometimes company might go two quarters, we're hardly making any acquisitions and then boom, boom, they make two right away. So you want to see that they're insistently deploying capital.

58:20That's a big one. And otherwise, they're doing what they say. And the underlying health of their businesses is still good. So, you still follow it just like you would any other company. I think the only added wrinkle is, yeah, in this case, you want them to spend capital acquiring new businesses. I don't know if there's any other specific KPIs I follow that are... I mean, different businesses have different KPIs. So, Constellation, of course, you're always looking at organic growth and seeing how that shapes out. That's kind of an important number. and that's the same with like brown and brown almost all of them you're kind of looking at organic growth as well and how how they are deploying their capital those are kind of the two big ones well chris thank you so much for joining me today before we say goodbye where can the audience connect with you your fund and your books well if you google woodlock house family capital that'll my website will come up and i'm also on twitter or now x as they call it So you can find me there as well.

59:15And your handle on Twitter? It's Chris W-M-A-Y-E-R. Okay, folks, that's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed the show and I'll see you back here very soon.

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