Capital Cities under Murphy was an extremely successful example of what we would now call a roll-up. In a typical roll-up, a company acquires a series of businesses, attempts to improve operations, and then keeps acquiring, benefiting over time from scale advantages and best management practices. This concept came into vogue in the mid- to late 1990s and flamed out in the early 2000s as many of the leading companies collapsed under the burden of too much debt. These companies typically failed because they acquired too rapidly and underestimated the difficulty and importance of integrating
...more
