00:28:40 · Mikk, Andrea Allegrini
[00:28:40] S0: I mean, you have an excellent overview of the market because you see the small cities, you see the large cities. Do you sometimes have the temptation to go after those larger firms as well? Because for them selling to you, there could be a potential upside earn out joining joining with the public firm and and together you could you could you could maybe grow faster, maybe. Or you're you're just very focused chasing those smaller companies because, again, the growth you mentioned, 35, 36 per... Percent per year, it's a proof that your strategy works. So do you sometimes have a temptation to go for after those larger firms as well? [00:29:23] S1: Yeah. We have it. We need to be transparent. But... And and we... Every now and then, we also meet those kind of companies doing, I don't know, $10.15, 20,000,000 turnover. But at the end, we never go on with discussing about acquiring those companies that strong pipeline next few [00:29:48] S0: years. We we [00:29:59] S1: prefer have a to focus the on... And also because those company maybe are more attractive for PE if they are willing to do this kind of a roll up in Italy. But the real economical tissue is made of companies doing 1 to 3,000,000 turnover. And so that's the territory where we need to to go hunting as you as you said before. [00:30:21] S0: I found the slogan which you've said, more plumbers, less managers. Could you maybe... Where did this idea came from?
00:30:21 · Mikk, Andrea Allegrini
[00:30:21] S0: I found the slogan which you've said, more plumbers, less managers. Could you maybe... Where did this idea came from? [00:30:28] S1: It's it's Mikkael that said this for the first time. But we also in in Lindbergh traditional businesses, we always paid a lot of attention in having a a lean central structure. Because, you know, sometimes people and entrepreneur hire people to solve problems created by other people while it's a vicious circle. So we always wanted to keep and have a very lean structure. We never hired a skilled manager from other companies, but young people willing to to grow and willing to take more and more responsibilities over the year. I mean, I'm the example in this case, and also my colleague, Matteo, who is the head of the HVAC business unit. And so we yes, that's like this. So keeping a lean structure because structure costs kill the margins. So we believe that the main asset is technician and customer on the territory. [00:31:40] S0: You've also said that departing technician can become a competitor. So how how does that reality, like, change how you pay, how you train, how you manage those people? And I'll add here another question as well. It's like every strategy has a shadow side, if we can say. So what are the risks for you when it comes to this this model you follow? Okay. The base, again, is buying a company
00:32:07 · Andrea Allegrini
[00:32:07] S1: where... With a high retention of technician and with a good tenure because when we go through the acquisition of a company, the assets we buy are to its customers and technicians. So we need to retain them, and we retain them by granting them better conditions also on the economic side. We ask them to be flexible, so to learn to work on different brands, on different machines, to start to work also on AC units, even if they've always worked on just on boilers, for example. So we built an internal academy for junior and senior technician. We improve their economic conditions, and we give them benefits. I'm giving you a very simple example, which is leaving the van to go You know, in the company... In the in the... In traditional HVAC companies, the the the owner is willing to see every day, every morning the van to check if it's in proper condition because he's willing to see the local technician. While for us, and we learned it in our experience in our logistics business, that if we are able to deliver spare parts during the night, then the technician can avoid go to the branch early in the morning. And so we allow them to go home with the with the van, which at the end of the month is is perceived as a... For sure as as a benefit. We grant them also better salary. In average, they earn more than 10% compared to what they to their previous salary. Plus, we have our bonus scheme aimed at giving them more money if they help us in implementing our strategy. So do some selling while doing maintenance activity and again going in high season to help other companies of the group. So for example, we ask them to travel, to stay away from home couple of days per month. But at the end of the month, for sure, we have a a bonus related to to this to this activity.
00:34:26 · Mikk, Andrea Allegrini
[00:34:26] S0: Okay. So if I'm a technician inside one of your acquired businesses, my life just gets so much better. Yes. I have to study. I have to evolve self development, but overall, it gets better, more exciting. [00:34:42] S1: Yes. And mainly, you become part of something bigger. And if you start doing maintenance services and if you are a good guy, maybe in a few years, you can become the coordinator of the technician. Or if you are very good, maybe you can become our local manager. So it's also important to show meritocracy in this in this sense because I think that what kills passion is being static, not showing to people that the company is evolving and the workers are evolving with it. [00:35:24] S0: Okay. Now let's talk a little bit about being public. Like Lindbergh is a micro GAAP public company listed in Italy. But you said that many of the investors are from U. S. How did you end up being in this position of having so many U. S. Investors?
00:35:44 · Andrea Allegrini
[00:35:44] S1: The main thing is that we like and we... I think it's also mandatory to reply to all the investor that write us asking for informations. It all started with an article on Twitter, On X, done by Croatian analyst that wrote to Mikk asking a few questions. And Michele was really impressed because those... That that guy studied a lot about us, and he he made very pertinent questions, and Michele was surprised. And so this article published on Twitter was read by an analyst of Sun Mountain Partners, which is an investor, one of our most important shareholders. So he read this article. They called us. They made a very accurate due diligence, staying here in Italy for days, talking with our customers, better understanding our business model. And the fun fact is that this company is very famous in The US among all the value investor community. And so we gained... It's incredible, but we gained lots of visibility in this sense. And today, I think that 30%, 40% of the floating is this in The U. S, even in retail, family office, funds. So it's we are quite proud to having reached this goal because we have a very good base of really long term value investors. Instead of being pressed by investor asking us about the next quarter, those guys ask us for the next twenty, thirty years, which is we share this kind of approach.
00:37:35 · Mikk, Andrea Allegrini
[00:37:35] S0: It's fascinating that you mentioned Sun Mountain because I think they were on a conference as well, and I I really enjoyed their presentation. And for sure, they are well known. So one question. You you did this pivot. So what about the listeners? What about the current investors? Do they need to... Not being worried is not the right way to put it, but will there be another pivot in the future or you finally found your your thing, you're excellent at, and you see enough deal flow, enough opportunity to focus for the next fifteen... I don't know, five, ten, fifteen years? Okay. [00:38:13] S1: I I think that our main job is to find opportunities. And we constantly discuss internally to find new ones. What is what if we talk about scarcity, today, the main problem is our energy and our time. So if we find a new interesting opportunity, we are evaluating it. But I think that if we are buying, for example, a new vertical, we need an entrepreneur helping us to carry on this kind of opportunity. But, I mean, we keep our eye open because, again, our shareholder expect this from us to seek and find and get new opportunities like we did with France and HVAC in the past. I mean, and and also not setting a really long term goals is what drives us on a daily basis to push and push and to reach and to work to increase the free cash flow per share, having the same interest. So we share we are very, very aligned with our investor in this case.