OHNE AKTIEN WIRD SCHWER - Tägliche Börsen-News · Noah Leidinger, OMR

“Rendite-Maschinen: Serial Acquirer & eigenen Fonds gründen” - mit Matthias Riechert

·45 min·3 clips

Investor Matthias Riechert studied at Warren Buffett's Columbia Business School and explains how to build your own fund and identify serial acquirers.

1. OHNE AKTIEN WIRD SCHWER host Noah Leidinger and guest Matthias Riechert, manager of the P&R Real Value Fund, discuss serial acquirer investing and the mechanics of building a fund from scratch. 2. Matthias Riechert studied at Columbia Business School — the same institution where Warren Buffett studied under Benjamin Graham — and met Buffett in a small group session in 2012. 3. The episode is split in two halves: the first 20 minutes cover serial acquirer theory; the second half covers specific stocks, Japan, and Matthias's career path. 4. Matthias defines a serial acquirer through a two-engine aircraft metaphor: one engine is organic business growth, the second is disciplined M&A, with both requiring distinct organizational competencies. 5. His preferred acquisition targets have recurring revenues, asset-light structures, and annual customer churn below 5% — metrics he says indicate a business that will 'not open to zero on January 1st' each year. 6. He contrasts serial acquirers with typical M&A: aggregate M&A statistics show value destruction for acquirers, while disciplined serial acquirers with proven track records represent a documented exception. 7. NGTG (Next Generation Technology Group) in Japan is cited as Matthias's fund's recent investment: the company made seven acquisitions in 2024 at an average 3.6x EBITDA, funded up to 80% by long-duration bank loans at approximately 2% Japanese interest rates. 8. Japan's structural tailwind for serial acquirers is extreme population aging — more severe than Western Europe — combined with a succession crisis where profitable niche manufacturers close simply because founders have no heirs. 9. Matthias also names Japan Elevators, a company that built an independent elevator maintenance business by undercutting OEM manufacturers who sell hardware at a loss and profit from maintenance contracts. 10. Sweden is identified as the historical home of the serial acquirer model: Bergman & Beving is the 'Ur-Vater' of the category, with Lagerkranz and Momentum as notable spin-offs; Matthias says six to seven serial acquirers can be visited on foot in central Stockholm. 11. NGTG's founder learned the serial acquirer model directly from studying Swedish companies, illustrating cross-market knowledge transfer in this niche investment category. 12. Three failure modes for serial acquirers are: acquisition multiples creeping upward, share issuance diluting holders, and excessive debt — typically appearing in combination before a stock collapses. 13. For valuation, Matthias argues for a 'beer mat' rule borrowed from a Columbia professor: if a complex Excel model is required to determine whether something is cheap, the investment idea is probably wrong. 14. He identifies the 'financial engine' — reinvestment of free cash flows at historically high returns (he cites 20% as an example benchmark) — as the core metric, analogous to a compounding machine. 15. When asked about Constellation Software's complexity, Matthias argues that portfolio-level KPIs across similar vertical market software units are sufficient — individual sub-product understanding is not necessary. 16. Brad Jacobs' QXO is noted as a serial acquirer variant that is outside Matthias's typical pattern: a small number of very large deals rather than many small ones, making durability of competitive moat harder to assess. 17. Matthias spent nine years at Citigroup structuring and selling investment products he would never personally invest in before leaving for Columbia Business School's executive program. 18. The episode has an energetic conversational style; both speakers share personal stories, with Matthias particularly animated when describing the Columbia experience and the Buffett meeting. 19. Long-term equity investors interested in compounders, serial acquirers, and alternative fund structures would find this episode directly applicable. 20. Listeners looking for short-term stock tips or those unfamiliar with German-language business content may find the density and language challenging.

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