In short: The named exemplar of the Swedish serial acquirers he learned about after 100 Baggers — and of the no-dilution standard: "Lifco has the same number of shares as when it went public." Grouped with the companies that "have proven to grow very well by acquisition."
Lifco is a Swedish holding company that owns a few hundred small niche industrial and dental businesses, bought one at a time and left alone to run themselves. It is the leading name in what has become a recognised category — the "Swedish serial acquirers."
Mayer uses it for the cleanest possible statement of the no-dilution standard: "Lifco has the same number of shares as when it went public." In other words, everything shareholders have earned since the IPO has come from the business getting bigger, not from the pie being cut into more slices. He rates the next step up even higher — companies that shrink the share count over time, opportunistically.
Again, an illustration of a standard rather than a recommendation. It trades in Stockholm (B shares), so a US investor buys it in kronor or via an OTC line.
26:06So yeah, that's why I love and admire these companies that have share counts that are unchanged over a long period of time. Constellation Software is an obvious one, but Lifco has the same number of shares as when it went public — Swedish serial acquirer — and then perhaps even better, the companies that slowly shrink it over time opportunistically.
In short: "It's the Swedish Constellation Software" — a decentralised serial acquirer of small niche businesses in dental supplies, demolition tools and systems solutions, buying "the #1 or #2 company in these small markets" and holding them. Record: revenue "more than 13% every year for a decade", EPS "more than 16% every single year". Moat: targets "too small for larger players to even look at", with high switching costs (dental implant systems) or standard-setting positions (demolition robots). Balance sheet: interest coverage 10.0x, debt-to-equity 0.3x. Alignment: Carl Bennet owns 50%, "the chairman has over half his wealth tied to Lifco's success." Price: "Lifco is never a cheap company. Since 2020, the cheapest it's gotten was a Forward P/E of 20x" — the target, implying 191 SEK against 304 SEK.
Lifco buys small, profitable, unglamorous companies — dental supplies, demolition tools, specialised industrial systems — and leaves them to run themselves. It targets the number one or number two firm in markets so small that big acquirers never bother looking. Then it does it again, over and over.
It is described here as the Swedish version of Constellation Software, which this portfolio already owns, and the numbers back that up: revenue growing more than 13% a year for a decade and profits per share more than 16%. Its balance sheet is conservative — interest covered ten times over, low debt — which is what lets it keep buying.
The alignment is unusually strong: chairman Carl Bennet owns half the company and has more than half his personal wealth in it.
The catch is that quality of this sort is never on sale. Since 2020 the cheapest Lifco has ever been is 20 times forward earnings, and that is the stated buying level — about 191 kronor against a market price of 304. In other words, wait for a repeat of the worst moment of the last six years.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.