Ann: Close the Loop acquires USA recycling company, page-3

Hmm, another sub-scale business to add to the collection of discrete, sub-scale businesses as much as I hate to be a buzzkill, this increasingly looks like a bit of empire building going on.

As a shareholder, I think these guys have enough of an operational base off which to grow organically, without the need to make yet more acquisitions.

For a small cap business, there are a lot of discrete operating business in this lot:




Plenty of differing business drivers in each of those business units - customer characteristics, supply chains, competitive landscapes regulatory issues, competition for capital, reporting lines, etc.

From the standpoint of the CEO, I don't know how he is able be able to keep abreast of all the issues.
And yet his in-tray keeps expanding

Put another way, if I owned this company outright and my managers came to me, saying, "Hey, Business Owner; as you know, we've acquired a lot of different businesses for you over the past two years, and we want you to now sign off on yet another one", my response would be:

"Nah, sorry, gents/ladies.  
Until you've demonstrated that you can make the assets, that have been acquired recently, earn their keep in terms of generating returns above the company's cost of capital, we're pushing the pause button on acquisitions for a while."

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