Compounders Podcast

My guest on the show today is Brian Lane, the President and CEO of Comfort Systems, a 3.6 billion dollar market cap company that provides mechanical and electrical services, including installation, repair and maintenance, to customers in the US. Brian became CEO in 2011 and over the last 11 years, has overseen very impressive revenue growth and stock performance. The company has consistently made acquisitions over the last decade but still has a ton of white space left domestically. Given Comfort Systems’ track record and runway for future growth, it was great to talk with Brian about:

• The company’s acquisition philosophy and what it adds to the companies it acquires;
• How the company is approaching a potential recessionary period in the US;
• The process by which Comfort Systems has built up a recurring revenue base;
• The structure of the industry from a competitive perspective; and
• How the company is overcoming both inflationary and labor availability challenges.

This episode of Compounders: The Anatomy of a Multibagger is sponsored by Tegus, an innovative and disruptive company that is changing the way professional investors work. For more information, please visit: https://www.tegus.co/

To get all the latest updates about the podcast, see who we’ll have on next, as well as watch the video version of the pod, please follow us on twitter at @BenClaremon and subscribe to the SNN Network YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/snnwire.

For more information about Cove Street Capital, please visit: https://covestreetcapital.com/

iTunes: https://apple.co/3xlUvPY

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jxkxLl

Each new episode will be available every Tuesday morning on Apple, Spotify and all podcast streaming platforms.

All opinions expressed by your hosts and the podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cove Street Capital or any affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, it is not investment advice, and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. We are not recommending the purchase or sale of any securities. The hosts and guests may be beneficial owners of the securities discussed. You should not assume that the securities discussed are or will be profitable.

Our guest on the show today is Steve Daly, the CEO of Instructure Holdings, a 3.6 billion dollar educational software company. After serving on the Board of the company, Steve became the CEO in late 2020, right in the middle of pivotal time for the company. Instructure’s core products consist of cloud-based learning management systems used by higher education and K through 12 schools all around the world. Listeners may not be familiar with Instructure, but the Canvas brand is likely something many people have heard of or even used.

In 2020, the COVID outbreak presented all kinds of challenges for schools, especially when it came to figuring out how to use technology to continue the education process in a remote environment. Given how well Instructure is positioned to help schools embrace new technologies, I was excited to hear from Steve about:

• How the outbreak of COVID impacted the demand for learning management systems in both higher ed and K through 12;
• Why cloud systems are better than on premise systems and how that leads to very low churn among customers;
• Penetration rates of learning management systems across end markets and the different strategies Instructure employs to grow;
• How the company went from being quite unprofitable to generating very attractive margins in a short period of time; and
• How Thoma Bravo’s Orlando Bravo convinced Steve to join the Board of Instructure and eventually become the CEO.

This episode of Compounders: The Anatomy of a Multibagger is sponsored by Tegus, an innovative and disruptive company that is changing the way professional investors work. For more information, please visit: https://www.tegus.co/

To get all the latest updates about the podcast, see who we’ll have on next, as well as watch the video version of the pod, please follow us on twitter at @BenClaremon and subscribe to the SNN Network YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/snnwire.

For more information about Cove Street Capital, please visit: https://covestreetcapital.com/

iTunes: https://apple.co/3xlUvPY

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jxkxLl

Each new episode will be available every Tuesday morning on Apple, Spotify and all podcast streaming platforms.

All opinions expressed by your hosts and the podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cove Street Capital or any affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, it is not investment advice, and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. We are not recommending the purchase or sale of any securities. The hosts and guests may be beneficial owners of the securities discussed. You should not assume that the securities discussed are or will be profitable.

Our guests on the show today are Scott King and Jeff Gorman, the CEO and Executive Chairman of The Gorman-Rupp Company, a 700 million dollar market cap company that designs, manufactures, and sells pumps and pump systems to customers all over the world. 2022 has been quite an eventful for year for the company. Earlier in the year, Jeff Gorman stepped back to Chairman, allowing Scott to become the CEO, despite not having the Gorman last name. The company also completed a very large acquisition of a company called Fill-Rite. Given those events and all of the other challenges in the world today, I was excited to speak with Scott and Jeff about:

• The timing of the management transition and the expectation that Scott continue the company’s long history of dividend increases
• The rationale for the Fill-Rite deal and why now was the right time to take a big swing—with some leverage;
• The importance of culture and the family-like values that have persisted over the last 90 years;
• Where the company is investing in technology and innovation; and
• How the company approaches tough economics times given all of the different crises the company has weathered during its long history

This episode of Compounders: The Anatomy of a Multibagger is sponsored by Tegus, an innovative and disruptive company that is changing the way professional investors work. For more information, please visit: https://www.tegus.co/

To get all the latest updates about the podcast, see who we’ll have on next, as well as watch the video version of the pod, please follow us on twitter at @BenClaremon and subscribe to the SNN Network YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/snnwire.

For more information about Cove Street Capital, please visit: https://covestreetcapital.com/

iTunes: https://apple.co/3xlUvPY

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jxkxLl

Each new episode will be available every Tuesday morning on Apple, Spotify and all podcast streaming platforms.

All opinions expressed by your hosts and the podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cove Street Capital or any affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, it is not investment advice, and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. We are not recommending the purchase or sale of any securities. The hosts and guests may be beneficial owners of the securities discussed. You should not assume that the securities discussed are or will be profitable..

My guest on the show today is Chris Mayer, the Portfolio Manager of the Woodlock House Family Capital fund and the co-founder of the firm. He is also the author of 100 Baggers: Stocks That Return 100-to-1 and How To Find Them. You will notice that we are doing something a little different with this episode. Chris is our first guest who is not an executive at a public company. But, since this podcast is called Compounders: The Anatomy of a Multibagger, we thought it would be great to have on the guy who literally wrote the book on finding 100-baggers. In this wide-ranging interview, Chris and I discussed:

• The common attributes of 100-baggers Chris found in his study of compounders;
• The biases that make it hard for investors to realize a 100-bagger;
• Why individual investors might be more likely than are institutional investors to get the full benefit of decades of compounding;
• Where serial acquirers fit within the 100-bagger paradigm; and
• Why high incremental returns on capital are so important to long-term success

This episode of Compounders: The Anatomy of a Multibagger is sponsored by Tegus, an innovative and disruptive company that is changing the way professional investors work. For more information, please visit: https://www.tegus.co/

To get all the latest updates about the podcast, see who we’ll have on next, as well as watch the video version of the pod, please follow us on twitter at @BenClaremon and subscribe to the SNN Network YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/snnwire.

For more information about Cove Street Capital, please visit: https://covestreetcapital.com/

iTunes: https://apple.co/3xlUvPY

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jxkxLl

Each new episode will be available every Tuesday morning on Apple, Spotify and all podcast streaming platforms.

All opinions expressed by your hosts and the podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cove Street Capital or any affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, it is not investment advice, and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. We are not recommending the purchase or sale of any securities. The hosts and guests may be beneficial owners of the securities discussed. You should not assume that the securities discussed are or will be profitable.

My guest on the show today is Heather Brilliant, the CEO of publicly traded company, Diamond Hill Investment Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: DHIL). Heather became CEO in 2019 after putting together an enviable resume of experiences at other investment firms. As of the most recent quarter, Diamond Hill had about $26 billion of assets under management, but still considers itself a boutique firm. In this holistic conversation, we discussed:

• Heather’s experience becoming CEO right before the world shut down due to COVID;
• Diamond Hill’s unique capital allocation strategy as relates to returning cash to shareholders;
• How the firm differentiates its strategies despite lots of competitors offering similar products;
• The avenues available for the company to continue to build is AUM base; and
• The concept of building a brand within investment management.

For full disclosure, I am not a Diamond Hill shareholder. For more information about Diamond Hill Investment Group, Inc., please visit: https://www.diamond-hill.com/

Listen to all Compounders Podcast episodes on either Apple or Spotify

iTunes: https://apple.co/3xlUvPY

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jxkxLl

All opinions expressed by your hosts and the podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of SNN or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, it is not investment advice, and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. We are not recommending the purchase or sale of any securities. The hosts and guests may be beneficial owners of the securities discussed. You should not assume that the securities discussed are or will be profitable.