OWNER-OPERATOR “SQUARED”
“We do not believe that merely because we are the buyer, we can do their jobs better than they can.”
“We have a lot of different subsidiaries and managers running those facilities that have their roots as a sole proprietor, an entrepreneur…when they learned how to manage that business, it was their wallet, their checkbook.”
“And when we find good people who know what they’re doing, we don’t come up with all of this horsecrap buzzwords from the corporate office like so many companies do. And we instead let them focus on their business. We get on the same page; we get into the weeds, in the detail; we understand exactly how they’re operating; and we’re here to support them.”
PATIENT, DISCIPLINED, ADVANTAGED
“the M&A world knows that roughly 80% of acquisitions don’t work. So I’m not going to buy into the greater fool theory because I want to see my salary doubled from $1 million to $2 million and so forth. My family’s money and our investors’ money is hard on the line. And I want to see it paid back before I die rather than wait 50 years to get my money back. So that’s the way HEICO is structured.”
“Companies that want to sell to us normally want to sell because of our culture…we tell people at the outset we’re not going to be the highest price…we intend to keep the company essentially forever and build it….what we are looking for is a management that wants to be in it for the longer term, that wants to continue running the company with minimal interference and pressure to get immediate profits today and tomorrow.”
NEVER BET THE RANCH
“We plan to utilize our financial flexibility to aggressively pursue high quality acquisitions to accelerate growth and maximize shareholder returns.”
PLAY THE LONG GAME
“33 years ago, we decided we wanted to build something for the long term and it wasn’t going to be built for years or a single decade, it was going to be built for multiple decades. And frankly, every single thing that we’ve done and every decision that we take has been designed to drive sustained long-term growth of the business as opposed to any short-term focus…we’re really benefiting today as a result of decisions that were made 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that you can’t make happen short-term”
“When times are tough like this [during the pandemic], we stick by our people. We stick by our programs…when sellers look at HEICO, all business go through various cycles, but they want to be connected with somebody who is going to be patient…and not run them out the door the first time there’s a downturn…I think that is one of the reasons we continue to be the acquirer of choice.”
“Our philosophy really has been to maintain outstanding customer relationships and to leave a lot on the table to make sure that the customers want to come back for more…we want to share the benefits.”
“…we think that demand right now [mid-pandemic] is a dislocation and we’re not willing to sacrifice customer service, new products…just to meet a short-term quarterly hurdle on our margins.”
“there are all sorts of cases that I can give you where we can significantly jack price on customers, and we don’t do it. And we don’t do it because we want to make sure that we retain that business for the long haul. In the short term, people can play all sorts of games with regard to pricing, inventory, all sorts of metrics that you see in the short term. But in the long term, you can’t get away with that. And if we want to build this market share like we’re doing, the only way to do it is to build that long term and to really have that level of trust.”
“We are, in my opinion, gaining market share…And I think that it is as a result of us taking care of our people as times got tough, making sure that we maintained our inventory and actually grew our inventories to make sure that we can support our customers, the fact that we are not highly levered and we’re able to make all decisions for the long haul, or the fact that our leadership teams and our salespeople have been with the company for decades.”