In 2001, Bergman & Beving split itself in three. One of its daughters, Addtech, listed eight days before 9/11 with fifty subsidiaries, a nine-person head office and a telecom crash already under way. Twenty-five years later it runs more than 150 companies and sells about SEK 23 billion a year. This episode is about the number behind that growth: profit over working capital, with a 45% minimum for every subsidiary. We look at how the ratio works, why Addtech runs above 80% while its parent runs at 36% on the same target, and how one number decides what Addtech buys. We also cover how the model survived the telecom crash, the financial crisis and a ransomware attack that hit 80 of its companies. This is part of our Nordic serial acquirers season; previous episodes include:

• Bergman & Beving: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/operational-velocity/id1896906148?i=1000798294775
• Lifco: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/operational-velocity/id1896906148?i=1000792128368

Sources

• Addtech Annual Report 2001/02: https://www.addtech.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Arsredovisningar/annual-report-01-02.pdf
• Addtech Annual Report 2009/10: https://www.addtech.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Arsredovisningar/annual-report-09-10.pdf
• Addtech Annual Report 2025/26: https://www.addtech.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Arsredovisningar/Addtech-Annual-Report-25-26.pdf
• Addtech Year-end Report 2025/26: https://mb.cision.com/Main/3619/4347027/4102743.pdf
• Addtech Interim Report Q2 2026/27 (22 Oct 2026): https://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2026-10/69903043-addtech-ab-interim-report-q2-1-april-30-september-2026-399.htm
• Addtech, Our history: https://www.addtech.com/this-is-addtech/our-history
• Addtech, Overarching targets: https://www.addtech.com/this-is-addtech/overarching-targets
• Addtech, Six business areas (press release, 25 Sep 2025): https://www.inderes.fi/en/releases/addtech-strengthens-the-organisation-for-future-growth
• Truesec, Addtech ransomware case study: https://www.truesec.com/cases/addtech-saved-after-a-massive-ransomware-attack
• Bergman & Beving, Annual Report 2025/26: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/investors/annual-report-2025-2026
• Skatteverket, 2001 distribution of Addtech and Lagercrantz shares: https://skatteverket.se/privat/skatter/vardepapper/aktiehistorik/l/lagercrantzgroup.4.1e92a90109fb231bdf8000909.html

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Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

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Meet the grandfather of Nordic serial acquirers, Bergman and Beving. Before Addtech, Lagercrantz, AddLife and Momentum Group, there was one Swedish technical trading house, founded in Norrköping in 1906 by two engineers, Arvid Bergman and Fritz Beving. In the spring of 1981, its CFO Anders Börjesson and his colleague Torsten Fardell wrote down a single ratio: operating profit over working capital (P/WC). Business units below a 45 percent threshold got no growth capital. Forty-five years later, that number still shapes how a family of six listed companies allocates capital.

This episode opens our Nordic serial acquirers season. We cover:

• 120 years of history, from Karlsruhe classmates to Nasdaq Stockholm
• How the group is structured, with roughly ten people at head office
• The operating philosophy: P/WC, the three-tier Focus Model and the internal Business School
• Every spin-off: Addtech and Lagercrantz (2001), AddLife (2016), Momentum Group (2017), Alligo and the new Momentum Group (2022)
• The B&B TOOLS centralisation of 2007–2012, the 2008 stress test and the turnaround
• Bergman & Beving today, and whether an operating system survives its architect

Sources

• 120 years of structural discipline: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years
• 1906 – Foundation: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/1906
• 1936 – Decentralisation formalised: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/1936
• 1976 – Public listing: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/1976
• Late 1970s–1980s – Profit over working capital: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/late-1970s-1980s
• 1967–2000 – Structured acquisition: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/1967-2000
• 2001 – Structural separation: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/2001
• 2008 – Stress test: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/2008
• 2012–2017 – Return to core principles: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/2012-2017
• 2021–Present – Refinement: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/120-years/2021-present
• Financial Report 1 April 2025–31 March 2026: https://storage.mfn.se/d1da91c4-3082-48c5-ad2a-d5f0a59e076e/20260513-bergman-beving-bokslutskommunike-1-april-2025-31-mars-2026.pdf
• Interim Report 1 April–30 June 2026: https://bergmanbeving.com/en/press-releases/bergman-and-bevings-interim-report-1-april-30-june-2026
• Affärsvärlden – Bergman & Beving: Rätt rustade: https://www.affarsvarlden.se/analys/bergman-beving-ratt-rustade
• Affärsvärlden – Bättre tider väntar: https://www.affarsvarlden.se/artikel/battre-tider-vantar-6702324
• Affärsvärlden – Ny tillväxtfas hägrar i Bergman & Beving: https://www.affarsvarlden.se/analys/ny-tillvaxtfas-hagrar-i-bergman-beving

Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

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In 2011, Brad Jacobs bought control of a $158 million Michigan-based logistics company at approx. $7 a share. Fifteen years later, that one share has become three NYSE companies: XPO, GXO and RXO. This episode tells the XPO story as a logistics story, not a deal story. We map every freight mode Jacobs bought into, from brokerage and LTL to intermodal, last mile and contract logistics. Then we follow the Norbert Dentressangle and Con-way deals, the technology-led integration, the spin-offs, and what was left standing: a 300-terminal LTL network with more than 30% spare door capacity by design, its own trailer factory, insourced linehaul, and a record 79.9% operating ratio. Why Jacobs chose a public vehicle. How the exit worked without a sale. Why the asset-heavy piece won. And whether the operating system survives its architect.

Sources

• XPO Form 10-K FY2025 (filed 5 Feb 2026): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166003/000116600326000016/xpo-20251231.htm
• XPO Form 10-K FY2022: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166003/000116600323000017/xpo-20221231.htm
• XPO Q4 and FY2019 results: https://investors.xpo.com/news-releases/news-release-details/xpo-logistics-announces-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2019
• GXO Form S-3ASR (spin-off details): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1852244/000110465921111674/tm2124819-1_s3asr.htm
• XPO completes RXO spin-off, 1 Nov 2022: https://news.xpo.com/2854/xpo-completes-spin-off-of-rxo/
• XPO Q2 2026 results: https://investors.xpo.com/news-releases/news-release-details/xpo-reports-second-quarter-2026-results
• Jacobs Private Equity: https://www.jpe.com/
• DC Velocity, "The big bet of Brad Jacobs" (2012): https://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/25771-the-big-bet-of-brad-jacobs

Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

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On 31 July 2026, Alimentation Couche-Tard, the company behind Circle K agreed to buy Poland's Żabka: more than 13,000 stores and around US$8.6 billion in equity value, the largest deal in its history. Just six days earlier, Seven & i, the owner of 7-Eleven, had pulled out of its own Żabka investment. A year before that, Couche-Tard had walked away from a US$47 billion pursuit of Seven & i itself. This episode opens up the operating system behind both decisions. We cover:

• Alain Bouchard's start in a single Quebec dépanneur (corner store) in 1980.
• The 460 store visits behind the 2003 Circle K deal.
• A decentralised model built on "9,000 chains of one."
• The Statoil playbook in the Nordics and Baltics.
• Five headline deals walked away from, in four countries.
• The fuel-margin, cost and self-distribution engine running more than 17,000 sites.

We close on the question this show keeps asking: can an operating system outlast its architect? Here the founder still chairs the board, and a third CEO is running the biggest deal the company has ever done.

Sources

• Couche-Tard, Q1 fiscal 2027 results (1 Sep 2026): https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-its-results-for-its-first-quarter-of-fiscal-year-2027-851557013.html
• Couche-Tard, Żabka agreement and tender offer (31 Jul 2026): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-agreement-to-acquire-controlling-stake-in-abka-group-and-launches-voluntary-tender-offer-302839695.html
• Couche-Tard, Core + More strategy update (11 Feb 2026): https://corporate.couche-tard.com/2026-02-11-ALIMENTATION-COUCHE-TARD-PRESENTS-ITS-2026-BUSINESS-STRATEGY-UPDATE-AND-NEW-LONG-TERM-GUIDANCE
• Couche-Tard, "10 for the Win" strategic plan (11 Oct 2023): https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-its-10-for-the-win-five-year-strategic-plan-821350918.html
• Couche-Tard, offer for Statoil Fuel & Retail (18 Apr 2012): https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-inc-to-make-recommended-offer-to-acquire-statoil-fuel--retail-asa-for-us28-billion-510036451.html
• Cstore Dive, TotalEnergies European sites acquisition (2023): https://cstoredive.com/news/couche-tard-acquire-2200-totalenergies-sites/645213
• Cstore Dive, Circle K and McLane third-party logistics (Apr 2025): https://www.cstoredive.com/news/circle-k-mclane-third-party-logistics/746665/
• Cstore Dive, Otsego distribution centre opens (Nov 2025): https://www.cstoredive.com/news/alimentation-couche-tard-mclane-distribution-center/805985/

Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

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In 1984, a physicist wrote a novel to sell his factory software. It worked too well, but it cost him his company. Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" became one of the most influential business books ever written. By his own account, operations managers that read it got better results than clients who had bought his scheduling software. He refused to pretend otherwise, and his shareholders showed him the door.This episode tells that story, then opens the Theory of Constraints for operators: the five focusing steps, Drum-Buffer-Rope, and why throughput accounting starts fights with finance. We test the evidence: a Marine Corps repair depot, an Air Force C-5 line, a Japanese toolmaker and the case against, including the failure mode Goldratt documented himself: what happens when a business books freed capacity as a headcount saving instead of a growth engine. This is the story about the man, novel, and impact on operations management. This episode pairs well with previous Operational Velocity episodes on John Little, Deming, and Aravind Eye Care, the links are below:

• John Little
  • https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ZsSVZSKyYk1Rtn1ZCHkU3
• W. Edwards Deming
  • https://open.spotify.com/show/033vWeYysd1RAQNqG8kqAg
• Aravind Eye Care
  • https://open.spotify.com/episode/7BJeh8XppHXhJ6vO1nGjzG

Sources

• Goldratt & Cox, The Goal (1984; revised 1986, 1992, 2004, 2014)
• Goldratt & Fox, The Race (1986)
• Goldratt, The Haystack Syndrome (1990) · It's Not Luck (1994) · Critical Chain (1997)
• Goldratt, "My Saga to Improve Production" (1996): toc-goldratt.com/content/My-Saga-to-Improve-Production
• Goldratt, "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants," Gestão & Produção (2009): scielo.br/j/gp/a/nw43nPSMWtFFqr4x5jhJkJn
• Watson, Blackstone & Gardiner, "The evolution of a management philosophy: The theory of constraints," Journal of Operations Management (2007)
• Mabin & Balderstone, "The performance of the theory of constraints methodology," IJOPM (2003)
• US Marine Corps, "MCA garners 'Fox' award" (2009): albany.marines.mil
• Srinivasan et al., "Warner Robins Air Logistics Center Streamlines Aircraft Repair and Overhaul," Interfaces (2007)

Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

Lifco is a Swedish serial acquirer that owns approximately 275 small niche businesses such as: dental products, demolition robots, crane attachments, recycling machinery and reports EBITA of 129% of capital employed excluding goodwill. In 2019, they mutually parted ways with their longstanding CEO and arguably the architect of their operating model. Since that time, they managed to triple their EBIDTA. In this episode, we unpack Lifco's story and more specifically break down the acquisition screen, the two-person ethics committee, the put/call structure that keeps sellers invested, and the "install a chairman" operating model, and set it against Danaher's business system, Constellation Software's capital discipline, TransDigm's leverage and Nucor's lean head office.

Sources

• Lifco AB, Interim Report January–June 2026 (14 Jul 2026) — https://mfn.se/a/lifco/interim-report-january-june-2026
• Lifco AB, Annual and Sustainability Report 2025 (30 Mar 2026) — https://storage.mfn.se/14bd9523-71cc-4c40-9476-705e245804f6/annual-and-sustainability-report-2025.pdf
• Lifco.se — History, Business idea and targets, Acquisitions, Organisation and governance, Shareholders (as of 30 Jun 2026)
• 7 Nov 2014, prospectus and IPO price — https://news.cision.com/lifco-ab/r/lifco-publishes-the-prospectus-and-announces-the-price-for-its-ipo-on-nasdaq-stockholm,c9676238
• 21 Nov 2014, trading commences — https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/11/21/685204/0/en/LIFCO-COMMENCES-TRADING-ON-NASDAQ-STOCKHOLM-TODAY.html
• 7 Feb 2019, changes in Lifco's management — https://news.cision.com/lifco-ab/r/changes-in-lifco-s-management,c2734259
• 8 Feb 2019, Lifco appoints new CEO — https://news.cision.com/lifco-ab/r/lifco-appoints-new-ceo,c2735252
• Röko AB, 11 Mar 2025, outcome of offering and start of trading
• Oliver Sung, "Is Röko a Lifco all over again?" (3 Jul 2026)

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Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

In 1986, a delegation from a German equipment maker walked into an unremarkable office building in Charlotte, North Carolina. Only twenty-two people worked in it. There was no executive dining room, no corporate jet, no chief technology officer and no R&D department. The man waiting for them, Ken Iverson, was about to commit roughly the entire net worth of his company to a casting technology that had never been run at commercial scale. A hundred companies' engineers had inspected the same machine. It took eight years for a single competitor to follow him. This episode is about why. Not the technology — the operating system underneath it. Four layers of management between the furnace floor and the chief executive. A weekly operating review of a Fortune 500 manufacturer that fitted on five sheets of paper. A production bonus with no cap that ran 80 to 150 per cent of base wage, paid weekly, on a standard that was never allowed to move. And a pain-sharing rule that cut the chief executive's pay by three times the percentage taken from the man at the furnace. We also do the arithmetic that most Nucor stories skip: what the same three decades did to Bethlehem Steel, and what it cost ninety-five thousand pension participants.Then the uncomfortable third act. In 1999 Nucor's board removed Iverson and, six months later, his successor, over a strategy the board wanted and the founders called heresy. Nucor then spent twenty-five years executing every item on that list, and it worked.

Sources

• Nucor Corporation, corporate history timeline, nucor.com
• Nucor 10-K, FY2025 (net sales, shipments, mill capacity, West Virginia project)
• Nucor Annual Report to Stockholders, FY2025 (headquarters headcount, decentralised structure)
• Nucor 10-K, FY2022 and FY2009
• Nucor proxy statements (DEF 14A), FY1998, FY2002, FY2020, FY2025 (Senior Officers Incentive Plans, earnings base history, compensation philosophy)
• Nucor quarterly earnings releases, Q1 2025 through Q2 2026
• Nucor 8-K investor exhibits, 2026 (capital allocation, balance sheet)
• Nucor Corporation (B), Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, case 2-0016
• Ken Iverson with Tom Varian, Plain Talk: Lessons from a Business Maverick, John Wiley & Sons, 1998
• Jim Collins, Good to Great, 2001

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Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

An eye surgeon in southern India sits between two operating tables. She finishes one cataract operation, turns ninety degrees, and starts the next on a patient who is already prepped and waiting. Six to eight operations an hour, against a conventional norm closer to one. They did not make the surgery faster. They removed the waiting. That single design choice is the seed of an operating system that now performs three quarters of a million procedures a year, gives away roughly half of them, funds itself without donors, and records infection rates of two per ten thousand cases. In this episode, Gautam examines Aravind Eye Care System: the constraint analysis Dr. G. Venkataswamy ran in 1976, the lens factory they built when a supplier's price capped the mission rather than the margin, the three-tier price list with no means test, the workforce they had to manufacture because the market didn't supply it, and the decision to teach the entire model to their competitors. Plus the question this show keeps returning to: does the operating system survive its architect? Aravind is the one case with twenty years of data on the other side of the founder's death.

Sources

• Aravind Eye Care System, Activity Report April 2024 – March 2025 https://aravind.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Activity-Report_2024-2025_Final.pdf
• Gupta S, Ravilla RD, Aravind H, Chandrashekharan S, Ravilla TD. "Changing patterns in cataract surgery indications, outcomes, and costs, 2012–2023." Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia, 2025 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11787026/
• Narang P, Ravindran R, Ravilla T, et al. "Allied Ophthalmic Personnel: Backbone of Aravind's Eye Care and Social Mission." Eye, 2026 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-026-04249-y
• Le HG, Ehrlich JR, Venkatesh R, et al. "A Sustainable Model For Delivering High-Quality, Efficient Cataract Surgery In Southern India." Health Affairs, 2016 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27702949/
• Haripriya A, Chang DF, Ravindran RD. "Endophthalmitis reduction with intracameral moxifloxacin… results from 2 million consecutive cataract surgeries." J Cataract Refract Surg, 2019 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0886335019303153
• Haripriya A, Chang DF, Namburar S, Smita A, Ravindran RD. "Efficacy of intracameral moxifloxacin endophthalmitis prophylaxis at Aravind Eye Hospital." Ophthalmology, 2016 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26522705/
• Ravilla T, Ramasamy D. "Efficient high-volume cataract services: the Aravind model." Community Eye Health, 2014 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4069777/
• Gupta S, Palsule-Desai OD, Gnanasekaran C, Ravilla T. "Spillover Effects of Mission Activities on Revenues in Nonprofit Health Care." Journal of Marketing Research, 2018 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022243718813347
• Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology (LAICO) https://www.laico.org/about-us
• Aurolab https://aravind.org/aurolab/

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Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.