"Their acquisitions have, as best I can tell, worked well. "...

"Their acquisitions have, as best I can tell, worked well. "

You're not wrong!
But I think the acquisition angle is overstated and masks the organic growth which, according to my assessment has accounted for more than 80% of the earnings growth over the past 7 or 8 years during which I've been a shareholder.



"I've looked at them before and the thing is that they're on a P/E of about 27 and, therefore, need to continue to grow to retain their current price.
Such growth comes from acquisitions."

Not even remotely exclusively from acquisitions; FY2022 saw the largest acquisition in the history of the company, and even then almost half of the FY21 to FY22 EBTA growth was organically-driven (over 13%). Which is about the level which it has been for as long as I have been a shareholder.



"I've just looked at this quickly and I notice as a result of their approach to financing acquisitions that net debt has trebled from about $200m in 2019 to about $600 in 2022.
There's no issues as a result of all of this as far as I can see as Interest Cover is running at about 17 times at the moment."

17 times interest cover for a capital-light business model.
Objectively, hardly remark-worthy


"I note that the directors performance is measured in part at least by positive movement in the EPS so their judgement may be coloured a little by this. It may become a little more difficult to acquire businesses inside their financial plans dependent upon the move in interest rates across the next six months."

Yeah, nargh. If I can't trust this board and management team to acquire prudently and judiciously, then I can't trust anyone to do so.


"So, yeah ....... really solid and smartly planned business but I'm not quite there with the gushing. "

You'll note that my gushing was confined to the business model and its management.
I made zero reference to that way the company's stock is being valued currently.

.