In this segment of "Industry Focus" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on Dec. 2, Fool analysts Nick Sciple and Auri Hughes chat about the leadership in place at XPEL (XPEL).
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Nick Sciple: One thing we haven't talked about Auri that I think is important, is the management leadership of this company. You talk about how they went for micro-cap land and to now this $2 billion-plus company.
That's an execution thing that you had to get there by really executing it in a strong way. What do you make of management and leadership of the company?
Auri Hughes: I think one of the criteria I was starting to look at or consider is how much value has management already created? Have they proved they can allocate capital? I think Ryan Pape, the CEO, he's proven that.
He's led and grew a business, took it over from almost going bankrupt, growing from $10 million market cap to $2 billion. That's insane. That's a huge gain.
I think there's definitely talent there. He's shown he can allocate capital. I think it'll just be checking to see that he's continuing to execute.
One of the things I love about these small companies is there are some great leaders that just no one knows about like growing this business to this size that aren't the Jeff Bezoses of the world or, I forgot the guy that runs Apple (AAPL).
Sciple: Tim Apple.
Hughes: Yeah, Tim Cook. But someone that's running a small company that's doing well and we're in a part of the market where if you do your homework, you can benefit from that. I think this is a company where if you do your homework, you understand management, you trust them, you're bound to do well.
The business is still growing well and it's had a nice little pullback. The valuation looks more reasonable than it has and now they're allocating capital and buying businesses, so it's still interesting to me.
Sciple: The real story that got me excited about XPEL is there's a Texas business journal podcast where he had Ryan Pape on, maybe a year-and-a-half, two years ago.
He talked about back in early 2010. He came into the company and became CEO and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Maxed-out his credit cards to save the company. Called the creditors and said, listen, we can't pay off everything, but I'll max out my credit cards and we can pay you and that ended up saving the company.
Obviously, leadership that is willing to max out their personal credit cards to save a business and then after that is able to achieve the growth they have over the past 10 years really instills a lot of confidence in me, both in their investment in the business and in their ability to execute.
With him still leading the company, being in charge of many of these acquisitions we talked about, whether it's PermaPlate or the bike protection film gives me a lot of confidence in the future of the business.
