Swedish serial acquirers have cracked the code on how to compound their wealth (at a staggering rate!)

Their holding companies trade at 12-29 times EBITDA.

Here is the story from their founder and CEO Fredrik Karlsson who got so unhappy with his boss so he decided to leave…

Start the exact same business.

Following the exact same strategy.

Today, ONLY 6 years later, he and his team has done 26 acquisitions which does $600M in revenue and $100M+ in EBITA

Here's a 74-minute in-depth summary of two full interviews with Fredrik Karlsson, a true buy-and-build pioneer, and Johan Bladh, Röko's CFO.

(I often learn by reading and listening, so I decided to read these interviews out loud.)

Show notes:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:29 - 26 portfolio companies, all asset light businesses

00:10:14 - The benefits of being sector agnostic

00:20:20 - Offering a 10-year put call option to the founder

00:26:01 - The hurdle of 15% operating profit

00:30:03 - With 8 people in the HQ, we can grow our profit even to $400M EBITA

00:35:15 - Looking at 300-400 deals per year (which leads to 6-12 acquisitions per year)

00:37:42 - HoldCo model vs Private equity: Decentralization and reporting of portfolio companies

00:44:03 - Understanding the markets, knowing what to acquire

00:56:07 - Competition in transactions

01:00:03 - What type of companies are they acquiring

01:11:12 - Maximum number of deals per year: 7 platforms; 2 add-ons

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Full interviews are free to read on In Practise website (huge thanks to their team for doing this):

Fredrik Karlsson, the CEO of Röko: https://inpractise.com/articles/roko-building-a-leading-serial-acquirer

Johan Bladh, the CFO and deputy CEO of Röko: https://inpractise.com/articles/roko-manda-strategy-transaction-structure-and-returns

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.