IP Fieldwork

This episode explores our historical work on Perimeter Solutions, a leading US aerial fire retardant company, including the competitive threat, how retardants are approved on the Qualified Supplier List, and the company's potential operational moat.

This episode explores how Constellation Software sources new deals compared to other acquirers such as Vitec Software and Röko, the Swedish industrial acquirer. We discuss how Constellation manages fills and manages its funnel, proprietary vs broker-led sourcing dynamics, and how the sourcing channel may determine long-term competitive advantage.

This podcast explores our learnings of the last five years studying Danaher's Business System through tens of hours of interviews with Former Danaher executives from the DBS office and its subsidiaries.

This interview with Magnus Söderlind, the Current CEO of Bergman & Beving, explores how and when the company deploys additional capital for M&A or capex into one of the group's divisions, challenges aligning incentives throughout the group, and how to scale a serial acquisition model.

This episode explores how we vet the quality and competence of executives before we interview them.

This episode explores the history of our primary research on Fever-Tree, why the stock has struggled for years, and whether the company has a distribution moat or is a commodity.

We explore how FTAI is approaching CFM56 engine repair relative to competitors, the challenges in fixing core modules, and the potential long-term growth for its module swap program.

This podcast provides insight into our research process behind our recent published work on Danaher's Cytiva bioprocessing business. We explore: How we approached studying bioprocessing Bioprocessing's moats and customer switching costs Why Cytiva has enjoyed ~80%+ market share for decades Details of hypotheses we built throughout the process How we sourced executives to interview How we structured our written research

This episode focuses on common mistakes investors make when submitting research projects to expert networks. We explore: How to submit executive call projects to expert networks Why understanding the org structure of the target company is important How to build relationships with account managers at ENs How to vet executives

This is the first episode in our "Primary Research Methods" podcast series exploring the art and science of primary research: The IP primary research philosophy How we structure research projects How we approach conducting executive calls Biggest mistakes and risks we face conducting executive calls

This podcast shares context to our recent research on how industrial acquirers like Lifco and Halma are organised to scale. We explore: How Lifco and Halma are organised differently The role of Sector Teams and Divisional Managers at Halma How Divisions and Sector Teams differs from Lifco's Group Managers Compensation plans for operating company managers at Halma and Lifco Potential organisational limitations to scale for Lifco and Halma

Loar is a ~$5bn listed aerospace supplier of mission critical parts. We explore: Why there are few TransDigm replicas Loar vs TransDigm proprietary intellectual property TransDigm vs Loar operational excellence How we evaluate the quality of aerospace suppliers

This podcast was recorded in April 2024 and explores the intricacies of purchase price accounting. We explore: How companies define 'identifiable intangibles' and goodwill Why and how there are different philosophies to PPA Impacts on income statement and balance sheet from PPA Measuring WACC for acquisitions Potential accounting risks for large and small acquirers

In this episode, we discuss our recent visit to Atlanta for Ashtead's 2024 Capital Markets Day including: Potential challenges as Ashtead scales to national accounts Why Ashtead may be more resilient than in prior cycles Other major takeaways from the CMD

In this episode, we explore our recent published research on discount gyms discussing: The key questions we've been studying around mature gym economics How Domino's and its fortressing strategy is an interesting frame of reference for discount gym competition The nature of competition in the discount gym business Risks to GYM and BFIT and how we structure our research around the topic

In this podcast, we explore our new content format "IP Company Learning Journeys" which curates In Practise primary research. Each journey (accessible here) provides a framework through which to navigate and consume insights from our library on a given company. This episode focuses on how we curated our work on Amazon's retail business including: How a unit flows through AMZN’s network from supplier, inbound, through the network to the customer Structural differences in AMZN fulfillment network design vs 3P carriers and how this impacts variable cost per shipment A seller’s perspective of the economics selling via FBA and FBM How to decouple the AMZN Retail P&L from consolidated numbers and estimate underlying retail FCF Endemic and non-endemic advertising across Amazon and the long-run opportunity

In this episode, we explore our recent research on TransDigm and discuss: How traditional OEM's approach OE and aftermarket pricing vs TDG How TDG's aftermarket philosophy is unique How airframers could combat TDG bargaining power How we approached our research to understand TDG pricing power

We discuss our recent research piece on Spotify's push into Podcasting and how it plans to monetise shows via advertising. We explore: How to segment Spotify's podcast inventory and monetisation methods across inventory types Bidding and sales mechanisms across top podcast shows Spotify's take rate across inventory types Spotify Podcast unit economics and outlook

We discuss our recent research on Wayfair CastleGate and its logistics offering to suppliers. We explore: How furniture dropshipping compares to Wayfair CastleGate logistics Potential advantages of Wayfair CastleGate vs dropshipping Challenges driving CastleGate penetration How we're exploring Wayfair logistics unit economics vs competitors More on our upcoming furniture supplier survey

We discuss how SHEIN has structured its supply chain relative to incumbent fashion retailers. We explore: Zara and SHEIN's supply chain philosophy How SHEIN can pay suppliers within 4 days Sustainability and QC challenges at SHEIN How Boohoo and ASOS can react to SHEIN's growth

We discuss the process and structure of our recent analysis on Constellation's 5 operating KPIs. We explore: How CSI reports revenue and cost lines in consolidated vs opco accounts The 5 major KPIs CSI uses to manage VMS businesses CSIs moat vs other VMS acquirers What one can learn from the 5 KPIs in operating VMS

We discuss the process and structure of our recent analysis on HEICO's acquisition of Wencor. We explore: The structure of the aftermarket value chain Synergies between HEI / Wencor across PMA, MRO, and distribution Advantages of owning MRO and distribution with PMA assets How HEI bargaining power changes post-acquisition Why the alternate bill of materials strategy is an opportunity for HEI

We discuss the process and hypotheses we're testing in our recent survey with CACC dealers. We also explore: The two core questions we explore in the CACC survey and why they are important How we approached sourcing auto dealers to complete the survey Why sourcing quality executives is difficult and techniques to improve sourcing Our approach to conducting quality surveys and upcoming work

We discuss the year-1 performance of Altera, CSI's largest acquisition to day, and share our learnings from 6+ hours of interviews with Former Altera / Allscripts executives and CSI M&A execs who worked on the deal. We explore: Why Altera's customer churn could be higher than expected Challenges meeting meaningful use regulations and new product development on Altera's R&D budget Impact on CSI's potential levered and unlevered IRR Comparison with Acceo, CSI's first LBO in 2018

We discuss the 6-month research project that led to our report on CSI's competitive risks. We discuss why it seems everyone today is rolling up VMS and the potential risks to CSI, including: How many CSI copycats we found across US / EU How their strategy differs to CSI How increased competition may increased CSI ROIIC

We discuss the history of Burford Capital and more specifically: Why Muddy Waters' short was perfect timing Litigation finance as an asset class vs other alts BUR Management team Risks with the business and investment case

We explore our research approach to exploring Costco's store growth opportunity across Europe and the UK. We discuss: How the UK is a unique market for warehouse clubs globally Planning and building consent in UK and EU vs US Why COST UK margins are lower than other markets Why EMEA growth for Costco is slower than expected Outlook on potential store count in EU / UK for 2030

In this audio-only analysis, we explore Ashtead and the equipment rental business. We discuss: Evolution in US equipment rental market structure Ashtead's competitive advantage Equipment rental pricing Valuation

In this episode we explore why we've been studying Diploma PLC, the UK-listed value-added distributor, for the last 12 months. DPLM has compounded EBITA at ~20% for over 20 years and has recently hired a new CEO that is accelerated growth. We discuss the following: DPLM's core business model and history under Bruce How Johnny is changing the org structure relative to other holdco serial acquirers Changes in the M&A strategy How we're approaching our research on DPLM for our Enterprise Tier

Last month, we visited Stockholm for Redeye's Serial Acquirer event. We met CEOs from Bergman and Beving, Lagercrantz, Röko, and many other Swedish companies that use accretive M&A as their core value driver. In this podcast, we explore what we've learned after a few years studying 'serial acquirer' companies. We discuss: Different ways of categorising acquirers; from Berkshire to CSU.TO Lessons from the most successful acquirers When it works and when it seems to fail Key ingredients for the serial acquirer model We discuss companies such as Lifco, Danaher, Berkshire Hathaway, and Diploma.

In this audio-only analysis, we explore: The complex history of B&B and what Lagercrantz's history can tell us about B&B Luna Group and how to segment B&B as a group B&B's M&A strategy under the new CEO A valuation framework for B&B

In this audio-only analysis, we explore Amazon.com's structural advantages including: Why there is a negative narrative from investors around Amazon's retail business Amazon.com distribution structure vs traditional brick-and-mortar retailers Structural cost advantages baked into Amazon's model What cost line items are driving Amazon Retail's operating loss and recent improvement