I am wary when a CEO makes himself part of the show and Steve Jobs was very much rightly or wrongly very much part of the show Tim Cook likes to stay in the background and another example I'm gonna give you here is what I call the dueling Bob's Disney Bob Eiger Bob Chapeck Bob Eiger absolutely makes himself part of the show
I'm Chris Hill and that's Motley Fool Senior analyst Jim Gillies we're putting an investor's lens on the TV show Succession your award-winning HBO series about waystar Royco a fictional media conglomerate and the drama that surrounds the family running the business Ricky Mulvey caught up with Gillies to talk about the real-life companies that parallel waystar Royco and the challenges of investing in larger than life CEOs
我是克里斯·希尔,我的搭档是摩特利富尔资深分析师吉姆·吉莱斯,我们将用投资者的视角来看待TV Show Succession,这是一部赢得奖项的HBO电视连续剧,讲述了虚构媒体集团Waystar Royco及其家族成员在经营企业和面临的挑战中的戏剧化故事。里奇·马尔维采访了吉姆·吉莱斯,谈论了与Waystar Royco类似的真实公司以及面对超级CEO带来的投资挑战。
and before you start listening let me warn you right now this episode does include spoilers for Succession so if you watch the show and you haven't caught up through episode five of season four consider yourself warned
with my spoiler alert out of the way let's get started so while I'm giving people time to to tune out if they haven't seen season four episode five I'm gonna I'm gonna I want to vamp a little bit outside of the show I think sees CEO Succession for a lot of a lot of businesses is often followed but I don't know if it's actually important to track it's really difficult to judge and also asking people who are CEOs what's gonna happen after you pass on is a bit like asking someone the details of their will yeah the the the ability to really step in it rather quickly is it's very much there and I don't having asked a few people what's in their wills I think Succession I think it's important and I hope you hear the uncertainty in my voice there because I think we somehow occasionally we need to remember the CEOs are people and people are complicated and people are new on some people have their own interests and sometimes those interests aren't aligned with yours as an investor yes that's true even with the best CEOs you know I'm looking at you warned about it and we have to remember that things are complex and sometimes
One of my all-time favorite CEO succession stories is: Do you remember where you were the day Steve Jobs died? I remember it well. I was in New York at my friend's place, and she said, "You know, oh, golf word actually, the leader." She says, "Oh, blank. Steve Jobs just died." And I go to look, and of course, the day was after a bower is when they announced it, and Apple stock price did not react well, put it that way. Except what really changed, you already kind of had Steve Jobs's handpicked successor was already kind of running the company like before that. That would be of course, Tim Cook, and I will argue, Tim Cook has been a much better CEO than Steve Jobs ever could have been post-iPhone. He died in 2011, of course, but the iPhone was 2007. He has been a better CEO than Jobs would have been in a post-iPhone era for investor returns, of course, as an investor I care about. But on the day that he died, on the day that Steve Jobs died, people very clearly thought, "Oh no, this is terrible, this is a disaster," and the world is unfolded very differently from there.
So that's why I say I'm not sure I think it matters, but I'm not sure. I'm wait one second. I want to zero in on, before we keep moving, you said looking at you warned Buffett. He's been like pretty good for stock investors, right? He has. I love Uncle Warren, and I'm going to the Berkshire meeting in a couple of weeks, or by the time this airs I guess in next weekend, but one of the succession things that Uncle Warren has put in place is that the chairman of the board, once Warren and Charlie exit stage left, they've already picked a successor to run the business and also to invest, but the chairman of the board is supposed to be Howard Buffett, who is, quote-unquote, to preserve his son, his oldest son to preserve the culture at Berkshire, you know the company he doesn't work for and has shown no aptitude or any kind of managerial, you know, those types of skill sets.
I'm like okay, why. Like why do we need, I mean, you know, not to call Howard Buffett a nepot maybe, but he's kind of a nepot maybe, right? He'll be installed in the, okay fine, sort of figurehead job, but still, like, Warren. You think Warren Buffett would have, would, would, I mean, you know, Warren Buffett who famously has a long-term relationship with Bill Gates, of course, founder CEO former CEO of Microsoft, as well as, you know, understanding, you know, during the ballroom years at Microsoft, not a hell of a lot happened, but then they got a true rock star in my opinion, such as Satya Nadella, who has taken Microsoft even greater heights.
I don't know. I've just never bought into Howard Buffett's going to preserve the culture. That's so funny. You're afraid to call him a nepot maybe. He's going to be the chairman of the board because of who his dad is. I'm absolutely calling him a nepot. Okay, well, I'm being a little different genuine. Yeah, I'm afraid to call him that, but I'm absolutely calling him that. Yeah, can a coke and common sense. Guys putting his kid who doesn't want to run the company at the helm, and in the case succession, it's not really clear if the kids actually want to run the company. You've had your time. We're getting into spoilers now.
Okay, here we go. Starting generally. Watching this season, watching this show, or have there been times where you watch it, and you go, huh, this rhymes with something I've seen in real life?
I generally think that second-generation CEO, second-generation taking over, I'm generally not a fan. I'm generally not a fan, sorry Howard Buffett. I'm generally not a fan because it's a difficult job, it's a complex job. Why do you think that just because you share some DNA with the previous holder of the position that you will be as good, and Roy Disney comes to mind as well, one of my favorite activist investing stories on that one too.
So when I look at what's gone on with succession, the show first off, I don't know that there's ever, I know I can't think of a better pairing. of writer and actor to deliver the lines than Kirin Culkin and Roman Roy I just give that guy all the awards because he's hilarious but you know what strikes me and has always struck me with this show of course there's four children you know there's there's Kendall and Roman and Chabon and oh yeah Connor from the first marriage who's over there being delusional but he wants a certain succession too if you know the plot lines these kids are profoundly damaged by by their father and the presence and this the scale of their father of who he is and what he is built and I would think if this were real corporation in a real story line I would be very reticent to have any of them taking over.
I think probably Chabon is probably the most qualified but there's there's a lot of entitlement in the two in Roman and Kendall they they feel they deserve it they of course are currently co CEOs in the show if you've watched up to kill lists the most reason episode and but that there's constant angling for position there's constant working against each other there's constant palace intrigue we'll call it Kendall in particularly is a profoundly damaged human being in my opinion who is just looking for Daddy's love again.
I think probably the one who's the most confident and I think the one that Logan the patriarch of the family what I think the one he probably was closest to and thought could probably do the job best was Chabon I look at these characters and I'm like I think the I actually think the best thing for investors in the show would would be that they that they the storyline right now fools for those who don't know is that they're in the wake of the patriarch's exit from the stage they are debating whether to keep the company or sell the company to a Swedish interest and I'm sitting there going oh no you sell and you take your money and you go sit on a beach and roll around in your dollars a Swedish ramp I mean I think that's but I think that makes it more realistic.
I I think what you said that the fact that they're profoundly broken they're not qualified for the job like in some ways doesn't that offer more of a similitude to to like CEO succession in some cases where the person who gets the job it's not necessarily because of their skill in the case of succession it's because Kendall Roy's name was half crossed out half underlined and he was able to capitalize it the right moment like that even if it's not successful that's that's played out before.
Yeah, I mean I've got a couple I was I was trying to think of before we did before we did does. I was trying to think of a couple of examples of family succession I've seen and these companies are both gone now so don't don't bother looking it up.
The two that came to mind - do you remember Dress Barn? I think the stores might still be around. I was not a head, no. Yeah, I was thought Dress Barn was kind of funny because you know, hey honey, I'm on buy something nice let's go to Dress Barn.
But they were the parent company of several concepts - with Dress barn, Maurices, justice (which was for younger girls), and a couple more. Anyway, they were a fine family-run business. You had the family still owned it. It was a husband and wife who'd found the company; the husband had passed on, the wife was still on the board, I believe. The son was the CEO, so there's your succession, your family succession, and I think the daughter was on the board as well. And I think the family had about 25% of this, still.
And look, it was a niche retailer. It's making the family a few million bucks a year. Like what their take-home was like, that's a decent, that's a nice little life right. But again, it's the hubris of wanting to get bigger, which might be coming into the TV show "Succession" in the most recent episode especially. But the hubris of wanting to get bigger. Dress Barn, again, they owned Maurices. I think they acquired Justice, and then they went out and acquired Anteiler. And I'm pretty sure it's Anteiler and Lane Bryant, forgive me, folks, if I if I misread the names.
But then they went out and so they levered up to go buy these other brands because we're going to have this like you know, a whole suite of brands. And then they had a really big, we're going to do new distribution centers and we're going to spread out across the country. And they basically leveraged themselves into bankruptcy. They destroyed generational wealth. The family's stock holdings were nine figures worth right.
And like I said, they were already, the family was still pulling a couple million bucks a year collectively in addition to having those shares. Rather than sell their shares and bank your hundred-plus million dollars and just going and sitting on a beach, which I promise you I would do, they destroyed it. They went into bankruptcy. So, that's one I thought was bad.
And then another one, this I since works sort of in a slow-moving banking crisis right now, Ricky, I figured I'd give you some banking fun. There was a bank called Irwin Financial. It was in the Midwest going into the credit crisis, and they did a big deal. They had paid a dividend and a growing dividend for a couple of decades, I think heading into 2007, 2008.
The CEO was the fourth generation of the Irwin family, like fourth generation. He always seemed very, a lot more interested in doing good works and appearing on charitable boards and being all over the place. I don't think he was really connected with the business. But because he was the fourth generation and there's family there again. His family wealth and, you know, he was controlling a trust that owned whatever percentage of the bank. But he was sitting on like 10 or 15 charitable boards and doing good works and all things that by themselves are good.
But while he was doing that, he was ignoring the fact the lending standards at his bank had completely gone off the rails. And so when then, you know, the mortgage crisis of 2007 through 2009 shows up, long story short, wiped out his business. And again, destroyed generational wealth, fourth-generational wealth here.
So, I would you know if I'm on the board if I am looking for the trying to pick the successor of Wastar Rocco, if I'm on that board, I'm like, you know, I'm sitting here going, well, well, anyone but a Roy. Like, like no, like not, we're not gonna, we're not gonna go with this nepo-baby succession plan. Yeah, it's the confusion of business of bloodline for business savvy, and I think you bring up a good point.
And maybe maybe we'll be wrong about this but I could very well see that being the end of the show which is the destruction of generational wealth right now they're in a position go Joe's offered them some I don't know the value of the deal and I think that's deliberate but an insane amount of money to take over the entire company and they're allowed to just walk away but now you have Roman Kendall is co CEOs while they're on the plane there patting themselves on the back for doing a great job as CEO hey and I think someone reminds them that they've only been at the job for 24 hours yeah they are also terrible at it.
You see them when they walk in with Lucas Matson in the latest episode the Swedish like tech billionaire they're they're getting dogged they realize that they're not punching at their weight class and that they're they're gonna get steen ruled by this guy yeah and you know ironically the the last again spoilers the last scene where Roman just goes off on him on Matson at the top of the mountain and it ultimately results in a better deal offered to them but you know the words coming out of his mouth he's not negotiating he is he is letting his bile and his anger and his disgust at the whole process just wash over Matson and then it ultimately ends up in a in a better offer to for his company.
And so as you say you know they're they're being all self-congratulatory in the plane over to Norway and they're looking very happy with themselves and the way back they just look like beaten dogs yeah and Matson knows it and Matson knows it and he has shiv sent him a picture yeah it's fantastic. I think I think something remarkable about that scene too is it's the first time that at least as a viewer I've been confident that Roman was telling the truth.
Is it a point where he's so broken that the sarcasm breaks down the humor breaks down his language breaks down to the point where he has no other option but to tell the truth and then even in Matson in that moment says you lost like in in in telling the truth and saying how you actually feel you've you've lost the game basically and and now I can now I could beat you thinking of Mats and I want to turn I want to turn the attention to him and see if pick your brain to see if we can find some parallels there this episode he kind of he becomes a character so Lucas Matson the Swedish tech billionaire forces the Roy family to come to him in in Norway for a retreats days after the death of their father to negotiate a business deal that could have been a phone call.
Which is that he wanted them to know that they wanted the cable news network or the news network ATN back into the deal and this is the episode that reveals that Lucas Matson's a vampire physically he's sending half-leaders of his blood to the comms director who's whose is ex-girlfriend the actor Alexander Skarsgard was also an intrubelad so there's a little bit of an illusion there the coldness of his character and also his admission that he wants to take take ATN take what way star Royco and buy it and strip it for parts I think those are two of the biggest like symbols that that that's a vampire storyline and I think that is also very common in business acquisition and the publicly traded investment world.
It is and and that's what I'm actually to go back to the Buffett line as well here where one of the aspects of the culture of Berkshire something maybe that Howard Buffett is going to be tasked once Uncle once Warren is gone is Buffett famously talks about if you sell to us we're not in the business of stripping for parts of you know ripping out what we can and maybe selling it in five years if you sell to us it is forever and specifically if you sell to us you will get to continue managing your own business where we can't provide new management.
So you know we're largely gonna you know be hands-off the idea that acquisitions are made and I mean the whole the whole concept of a kill list the title of the of the episode is when you have two companies one company acquires another company and they're matching two organizations it's the acquirer builds a so-called kill list a list of the people they do not slash will not need at you know the the combined company and I mean in that and that is the you know that is the the great problem for a lot of acquisitions if you are if you are acquired I mean if you're acquired and you've got a whole ton of stock and you're getting a nice buy-out I mean this could be great but you're probably gonna lose control of your baby and or your job and and if you're fine with. that okay but a lot of the rank and file you know won't
I mean you know if you're you know you're the corporate treasurer and you're far down the org ladder and you probably don't know your your salary you need to salary to make make your mortgage and eat time to bone up on that resume because you're probably not gonna have a job tomorrow or the you know if one company acquires another company in the sales force you know they've each got a sales force well you know you know who's going away and it's not the sales force of the existing business so no company needs two CFOs no company needs to see a force
I think the one story that that might be closest to this show is the story of Louis Vuitton Bernard Arno so for those who don't know it's this guy is the he is the richest person in the world surpassed surpassed your guy Musk surpassed who's the other person in the running I can't think of it it was Musk Bill Gates but now it's Bernard Arno is the richest person in the world running Louis Vuitton and he has five children who have essentially been jockeying for the CEO job all of their lives and has made the promise oh this is gonna be a merit meritocratic decision it's gonna go to one of them like highly educated train them to be like business like to be elite business people
我认为与这个节目最接近的故事可能是路易维托瓦·贝纳德·阿诺(Louis Vuitton Bernard Arno)的故事。对于不知道的人来说,这个人是世界上最富有的人,超过了你们的马斯克和其他竞争者(我想不出来)。现在,贝纳德·阿诺是世界上最富有的人,他经营路易威登(Louis Vuitton),他有五个孩子,他们从小就一直在为CEO的职位争夺。他们的承诺是这将是一个功绩主义的决定,这将会给一个高度受过教育、接受了商业培训的精英企业家。
and what he did I think earlier this year was he just raised the retirement age of his company from 74 to 80 years old and how old is he can play a few more so he can play a few more seasons he's 74 exactly he wants six years wonder why he did it and that's kind of the case with a lot of succession stories and this was the case in succession where we're gonna have this promise that I'm gonna you know that the leader is gonna step down as CEO but we'll see when it actually happens that that's kind of been going on at JP Morgan too yeah
and I am gonna go back to the show for a minute and I'm gonna go back to the first season because of course the show starts with Kendall is the heir apparent Kendall I mean it starts with we're about to coronate Kendall Roy as the natural successor to Logan Roy played by the brilliant Brian Cox and basically Kendall who again is is a bag of anxieties frankly he's he's completely unsuited for it and you know he kind of screws up and and dad takes the opportunity to say yeah I'm gonna stick around again much like Bernard Arnoh here
but if you go back and watch the the the old seasons again so the two boys are the two younger boys because again the fourth child from the first marriage conner's just kind of over in the corner doing whatever conner's doing the boys are in meshed in the in the company and they are you know again they're they're carrying for favor and trying to please daddy but also they hate daddy and Shavon is out Shavon's a PR consultant she's out
and the way if you go back and watch those early episodes the way that Brian Cox talks to her and you can see the affection that he holds her and now he's still fairly coarse language and he's still he's still Logan Roy so he tends to run over everything in his path but the way he talks to her versus the way he talks to the kids or to the boys you can see he actually respects her more than his sons because she's left because she's gone out on her own because she's gone and built a career independent of him did did she surely have the ability to get you know to get places that you or I couldn't get because she had family connections of course but you know she she has you know she's very clearly the apple of his eye and he has the way he interacts with her and what changes is when she comes it works for him then she slots in with the with the brothers and becomes just another kind of you know everyone like it's the worst thing that she does personally is to actually come and work for her father because she loses that autonomy and she loses her father's respect and it's kind of tragic
do you think there are any takeaways for investors from from from the show succession I'll give you I'll give you a couple one is really quick I am wary of you know the succession plan is based on DNA I I like a true meritocracy
I want the best person for the job and I don't particularly care where they came from so that's number one and that's very broad.
我希望选最适合的人来完成这项工作,我并不在乎他们来自哪里,这是第一位的要求,而且非常广泛。
The narrow one I do have one more example of just the something that I'm going to want to avoid because look most of the time you don't really see when a CEO transition is coming and when it comes quite often like you know like I it's very easy for me to say a succession Tim Cook versus Steve Jobs Tim Cook is a much better CEO than Steve Jobs could have been for Apple yeah but it's 12 years of experience I can draw on right to make that assertion in the moment you don't know about it but I am and and and and and and part parcel of that assertion is I am wary when a CEO makes himself part of the show and Steve Jobs was very much for right we are wrongly very much part of the show Tim Cook likes to stay in the background and and another example I'm going to give you here is what I call the dueling Bob's okay that is the Bob Iger Bob TAPIC.
我还有另一个例子,是我想要避免的事情,因为很多时候你真的看不出CEO的接替会发生什么,有时候就像,我很容易就能说接替Steve Jobs的CEO Tim Cook比Steve Jobs更适合担任苹果公司的CEO,但需要利用12年的经验去做出这样的断言,你在那个时刻并不知道,而且我对于那样的断言持谨慎态度,因为Steve Jobs很大程度上是在炫耀自己,而Tim Cook更喜欢保持低调。我要再举个例子,就是我所谓的“决斗Bob”,指的是Bob Iger和Bob TAPIC。
Bob Iger absolutely makes himself part of the show okay he has so much power and he he did the whole all shucks you know I mean I'm gonna yeah he was doing that for years before he actually left in 2020 then his hand pick successor Bob I Bob TAPIC comes in and he's almost immediately and constantly undermined by board member Bob Iger former CEO Bob Iger right and you know he's blame for stuff I will note that Disney hit its all-time share price high under Bob TAPIC just gonna put that out there but you know Igers constantly you know undermining him even though you know the world is upside down with their parks are closed due to covid you know the code everything is just off-kilter completely he's inherited the debt associated with the Fox Fox acquisition which was made under Bob Iger.
He is inherited you know what I you know I'm of the opinion most streaming services are gonna basically provide value to subscribers and no value to companies sorry Netflix sorry prime and Disney plus by all accounts is losing money right but he inherits that and so he's just beset on all sides and then and and he even got the wonderful stamp of approval from the board we which I mean at that point I hope he started his eyes are may polishing it up but he gets a stamp of approval from the board I think about seven or eight months before Bob Iger knife some in the back when some pandemic is largely over and he can reassign and and then Bob Iger almost immediately starts like oh shock I'm not gonna be here that long yeah okay.
If I'm if I'm the CEO candidate for the next time Bob Igers wanted to leave and you know I am not but if I was one of the potential candidates I would have my my employment contract drawn up where like I get a billion dollars if Bob Iger sets foot on Disneyland park ever like like you can't trust the scenario you might as well just give it to Iger until he dies because no one's gonna trust him and so you've now got this kind of fiat state run by Bob Iger and I think that detracts and look Disney's share price returns have been you know mediocre for years frankly which is bizarre for a company that owns childhood so I just I tell me I'm wrong.
I think one reason you're not gonna be the CEO is the promise that the streaming service will never ever make money but no I see what you're saying I think something that Iger and Jack Welch actually haven't common is that there might have been a deliberate and I'm saying may possibly who knows a deliberate almost sandbagging of the replacement where you don't want the next person because no one can do the job quite like you can exactly so whether it's Jeff ML Bob Chaypeck they come in as the hand pick successor from the CEO and there may be a subliminal knowledge from that person that it's not it's not gonna run as well as it could under me because that's impossible yeah and I will I will also note that of course Jack Welch managed to not not just blow up GE with Jeff ML in the background but he kind of did a deal on Home Depot too right because Bob Nardelli who lost out on the GE job goes to Home Depot and just was you know brutal there for years and only after he was ousted which I think was early 07 and no tears for Bob Nardelli got a quarter billion dollars to go away but only after he was ousted did Home Depot just turn into this fantastic cash generating engine that it has become and that I get you know like I think the stock is I'm gonna make up a number I think it's about 320 bucks today ballpark.
I have very fond memories of Home Depot. You know, you could have bought Home Depot. You heard of them, you know, they're in one or two cities around North America. You could have bought Home Depot for like, you know, 19 dollars in the wake of Bob Nardelli's exit, which to me is just fascinating. It's so much value is created, but you know, again, Bob Nardelli, candidate for GE, loses, and GE goes over and tries to apply the GE method at Home Depot and fails miserably. And I think that's another lesson, just because you might have come from a system that has a much-bought CEO, I'm not sure that if you go to a different culture, a different company, it's gonna translate. It might, in fact, just explode.
我对家得宝有很多美好的回忆。你知道吗,你本来可以购买家得宝的。你肯定听说过他们,他们在北美的一两个城市里。在鲍勃·纳德利辞职之后,你本可以以19美元的价格购买家得宝,这对我来说非常有趣。这创造了如此大的价值,但你知道,鲍勃·纳德利参加通用电气总裁竞选失败后,GE 到家得宝试图应用 GE 的方法,但失败惨重。我认为这是另一个教训,就是即使你来自有一位备受追捧的CEO的系统,我不确定如果你去到不同的文化,不同的公司,它会转化。事实上,它可能会爆炸。
As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the monthly formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy yourself stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.