"We’ve recommended Danaher stock to our clients for
about 15 years but not without some second thoughts at times" $DHR
"An industrial company that decides to become a
healthcare company ... acquisitions that sometimes
challenge even the most forward-thinking analyst."
"Not only is Danaher willing to become smaller, but once it believes that an asset no longer fits in its long-term plans, it finds a better owner for it—even if the asset is still growing and creating value. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional conglomerates of the past"
Discovering the Toyota Production System
"Koenigsaecker formally employed the Japanese experts on a consulting project ... Lean and continuous improvement principles fully into its culture."
"the Danaher Production System was born, the predecessor to the more evolved and broader Danaher Business System. Its basic principles, rooted in Lean and continuous improvement, are fundamentally unchanged today."
"In the late 1980s industrial assets were for sale on the cheap"
"Danaher acquired businesses considered solid, yet poorly run and in need of very hands-on management support."
“We compete for shareholders”
"It was no longer enough for Danaher to excel with
Lean and smart M&A."
"Culp wanted process in everything. He wanted no
waste."
"The result was a deeply rooted culture of pervasive improvement."
CFO with 250 deals worth $45 billion under his belt:
“Now that the deal is closed, please tell us everything that you failed to tell us during diligence.”
"He believed that ... what distinguishes the good from the bad deals are the speed and permanence of the fixes"
"every acquisition has a war room with timelines, maps, and checklists. Responsibilities are clearly noted, and if someone is falling behind, the red ink denotes that as an area of focus"
"Repeatable functions are easily measured, and what’s measured can usually be improved"
"Danaher believes people normally quit because of bad managers, not because of pay... unusually high turnover or degradation in employee engagement, the manager is usually the root cause.
It believes bad managers have a terrible impact that can last long after they are gone"
Book: Lessons from the Titans
• • •
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"It's like you have a cell phone and then somebody gives you the charger. Oh, I can get this thing up to a hundred anytime I want?!
"It doesn't feel like anything. Doesn't do anything. I don't get it. I don't understand it. But here's the difference: at 1pm that day, my head does not hit the desk like it used to. ... I sail through the day."
"The way I look at life, basically is it's exhausting. Being busy is exhausting. Doing nothing is exhausting. No matter what you do, it's exhausting.
Sleep is hit and miss, [transcendental meditation] is not. It's this thing that augments your need for rest.
"I would always say to the people that don't do it, I can't believe you stay up all day."
"A lot of stand up is analogies.
The phone charger is pretty tough to beat as an analogy because your phone charger never doesn't work.
And that's the great thing about TM. You never have to wonder. That's the big difference between sleep and TM. TM never doesn't work perfect."
"Trait #1 is the ability to buy stocks while others are panicking and sell stocks while others are euphoric.
When 1999 comes around and the market is going up almost every day, you can't bring yourself to sell because if you do, you may fall behind your peers."
Roughly: Investing -> returning capital -> liquidating assets.
Unexpected:
"We expected low or negative spreads between ROIC and WACC for companies newly listed, rising spreads as they mature, a decline in senescence.
What we found was nearly the opposite. The spread at the date of the IPO was high and narrowed before stabilizing."
Companies going public (selling equity to new investors) when return on capital looks most attractive (and is about to decline)?
Returns to shareholders on the other hand were most attractive for more mature companies.
Druckenmiller: "I am so tired of being a bear, and being labeled a bear."
But: Liquidity ⬇️
"Since it's taken so long, the Fed has ended up with a higher terminal rate. Inflation gets stickier the longer its in the system. That increases the probability of a hard landing."
"We always short the same way. ... I try and think of a situation 12 to 18 months from now and if I think the security prices are going to be less, I short.
Frankly, I'm not sure I've ever made money in shorts. I like it. It's fun, but you can get your head handed to you."
"When I was at Soros, I shorted $200 million worth of Internet stocks in March of 99. And in three weeks covered them at a $600 million loss. I lost $600 million on a $200 million investment in three weeks.
I was short 12 stocks. They all went bankrupt Every one of them."
ROIC and margins for companies with different moats by @mjmauboussin
"A company creates value when its ROIC is in excess of cost of capital. Stated differently, it makes a dollar worth of investment worth more than a dollar in market value.
The market broadly appreciates this, especially when growth is considered as an additional variable."
"Markets are akin to an ecosystem where investors fill various niches. Investors with a short-term horizon tend to focus on near-term metrics such as sales and earnings.
Investors with a long-term horizon focus on competitive advantage and the size of the market opportunity."
Like other great investors, Sam Zell used content as a form of leverage. His "guide to the risky art of resurrecting dead properties" earned him his nickname, the Grave Dancer.
"Some might see buying and creating value from others’ mistakes as a form of exploitation, but I see it as giving neglected or devalued assets new life.
Often in my career I’ve been the only bidder for them—the last chance for a resurrection."
"I’m not claiming to be altruistic— just optimistic, and confident that I can turn those assets around.
That, in my definition, is an entrepreneur. Someone who doesn’t just see the problems but also sees the solutions—the opportunities."