December 1, 2025
The Compounders: From Small Acquisitions to Giant Shareholder Returns
Oddbjørn Dybvad, Kjetil Nyland, and Adnan Hadžiefendić
"The Compounders" offers an intriguing exploration of successful serial acquirers, notably highlighting the fascinating anomaly that five of the nine featured exemplars hail from Sweden. The book dissects why these specific "roll-ups" succeed, focusing on a strategy of acquiring small, family-owned niche businesses that are often too small for private equity or whose owners seek to protect their life’s work from financial engineering. It illustrates how patience, years of relationship building, and a relentless focus on cash flow by "forever CEOs" drive superior long-term compounding. For value investors, this read provides a compelling framework for identifying the structural traits of exceptional capital allocators—traits that we can often recognize and appreciate within our own portfolio holdings.