“So throwing capital back into investors through buybacks, it's sort of like, you know, the consequence of having run out of good ideas.”
Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing · October 2026
Asked how private business owners allocate capital compared with public companies, Zwick says buybacks and dilutive acquisitions are often what established firms do when growth runs out. Smaller private firms, he argues, can still grow by simply finding more customers.
Transcript
…might be a little different than the Magnificent Seven. So I think like as a public market investor, that's what we think about all the investors are flooding into those seven bets. What are some like maybe interesting contrarian bets? Those are some thoughts I have on that on that question. One
…wealthy, as you call them in the book, how do they tend to think about capital allocation? Because I also think that there's often parallels that we can draw when we're looking at quality businesses in the public markets from what we see in terms of the actions taking place in the private markets.
Yeah. So I see some of these acquisitions or like, so throwing capital back into investors through buybacks, it's sort of like, you know, the consequence of having run out of good ideas. And, you know, in some cases, like the dilutive acquisition is, well, we see the writing on the wall with our main business line, which is trending, you know, down. And so in the absence of this acquisition, it's going to look even worse. So it could still make sense to do it, even if it's like not a great, you know, it's not going to like, you know, lead to salvation for the company. Stealthy…
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Yeah, and it's interesting to think about how as investors and public companies who sort of gain indirect exposure to these players just by nature of their relationships with some of these big players. When you were writing this book, as we get to the end of our time here together today, I'm…
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