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Financial data for investors in serial acquirers

See what a serial acquirerreally earns.

The screener that reads serial acquirers correctly.

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The problem

The best acquirers
look the most expensive.

  1. Purchase accounting buries their profits.

    Amortization of the intangibles they buy sits inside operating profit for years after every deal.

  2. Their “one-time” charges come back every year.

    Deal costs, restructuring and earn-out remeasurements recur with each acquisition, yet get treated as noise.

  3. Half of them file in Sweden, Canada or the UK, under different accounting rules.

    IFRS and US GAAP draw the same lines in different places, so raw figures don’t compare.

Worked example

From the filing to the figure.

Start from operating profit exactly as filed. Each adjustment is a printed line with its source attached. Anything that isn't acquisition accounting stays a cost.

NYSE-TDGForm 10-K · fiscal year ended 30 September 2025

TransDigm, fiscal 2025 (USD millions)

Income from operations, as filed
0
Bridge from the filed figure to normalized EBITA, built one ledger line at a time, with a zoomed view of the adjustments.
Full scale0 → 4,639
Adjustments, zoomed4,127 → 4,414
+201+10−51
As filed Added backRemoved
As filedConsolidated Statements of Income
From the filing
Income from operations4,165
us-gaap:OperatingIncomeLoss

Income from operations, as filed

The GAAP subtotal, exactly as filed. Every adjustment starts here.

Line 1 of 6
TransDigm Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, on SEC EDGARSee TransDigm's full ledger
Across the universe

What normalization changes.

Software roll-ups carry the heaviest acquired-intangible amortization, so they gain the most. Where one-off gains or earn-out credits are removed, the margin falls instead.

Reported operating margin, as filedAdded by normalizationRemoved by normalization
Reported operating margin and normalized EBITA margin, latest fiscal year
CompanyReportedNormalized
Lumine GroupLMN21.8%36.5%+14.7 pts
Descartes SystemsDSGX28.8%40.0%+11.2 pts
Topicus.comTOI15.0%25.7%+10.7 pts
Constellation SoftwareCSU16.3%26.8%+10.5 pts
Roper TechnologiesROP28.3%38.6%+10.3 pts
LifcoLIFCO-B18.3%22.2%+3.9 pts
AMETEKAME25.8%29.6%+3.8 pts
HEICOHEI22.7%26.1%+3.4 pts
TransDigmTDG47.2%49.0%+1.8 pts
WatscoWSO10.0%9.6%−0.4 pts

Latest fiscal year, ruleset 1.2.0. Ten of 22 normalized companies shown.

The full universe
The screener

Reported next to normalized,
for the whole universe.

Millions of each company's reporting currency. A dash is unpublished, never zero. Every figure opens its filing line.

8 of 35 · sorted by normalized margin · swipe for more
Screener preview, Overview view
CompanyReported op. profitNormalized EBITAReported marginNormalized margin
TransDigm TDGUS industrial · USD4,1654,32547.2%49.0%
Descartes Systems DSGXSoftware · USD21029128.8%40.0%
Roper Technologies ROPUS industrial · USD2,2353,05128.3%38.6%
Lumine Group LMNSoftware · USD16727921.8%36.5%
Constellation Software CSUSoftware · USD1,8953,11216.3%26.8%
Halma HLMAUK acquirer · GBP52658920.4%22.8%
Lifco LIFCO-BNordic industrial · SEK5,1706,27218.3%22.2%
Lagercrantz Group LAGR-BNordic industrial · SEK1,6941,89316.0%17.8%

Lagercrantz is in review because two filings print a different figure for the same year of a note table. That year is withheld until a person decides which filing stands.

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The ruleset

One published ruleset,
the same for every company.

Strip what is an artifact of having acquired. Keep what is a real ongoing cost. Each version is the SHA-256 of the document that defines it, and every figure names its version.

  1. Added back

    Acquired-intangible amortization

    Customer relationships, technology and trade names created by purchase accounting. The single biggest reason GAAP earnings misprice serial acquirers.

  2. Stripped symmetrically

    Other purchase-accounting artifacts

    Earn-out remeasurements and inventory step-ups. A charge is added back, a credit is removed, with no recurrence test.

  3. Kept as a cost

    Capitalized software amortization

    Genuine ongoing reinvestment. Where a line mixes acquired and operational amortization and the notes do not split it, the company goes to review.

  4. Kept as a cost

    Stock-based compensation

    A real cost of paying people and a real source of dilution. Management's figures that exclude it are never used.

  5. Stripped, unless they recur

    One-off items

    Impairments, deal costs, restructuring, litigation. Anything labeled one-time in four of the last five years is put back as recurring.

  6. Decomposed

    Organic, acquired, FX, price

    Split from the company's own bridge, with its own definition of organic shown next to the number.

  7. With and without goodwill

    ROIC, ROIIC, return on acquisition capital

    Normalized NOPAT over average invested capital. Three-year ROIIC says whether the machine still works at scale.

  8. Tracked per year

    Net debt, deal multiples, capital deployed

    Rising multiples, rising leverage and falling returns is the pattern of a roll-up reaching for growth.

Read the full methodology
Coverage

Serial acquirers in coverage

Primary documents only, never an aggregator. Each figure stays in the currency the company reports in.

  • Constellation SoftwareTSX: CSU
  • Roper TechnologiesNasdaqGS: ROP
  • Assa AbloyOM: ASSA-B
  • Lagercrantz GroupOM: LAGR-B
  • Waste ConnectionsNYSE: WCN
  • Momentum GroupOM: MMGR-B
  • DiplomaLSE: DPLM
  • NordsonNasdaqGS: NDSN
  • Descartes SystemsNasdaqGS: DSGX
  • AmphenolNYSE: APH
  • AddnodeOM: ANOD-B
  • Beijer RefOM: BEIJ-B
  • Colliers InternationalNasdaqGS: CIGI
  • Boyd GroupTSX: BYD
  • FirstServiceNasdaqGS: FSV
  • Ashtead GroupLSE: AHT
  • Arthur J. GallagherNYSE: AJG
  • LifcoOM: LIFCO-B
  • RollinsNYSE: ROL
  • InstalcoOM: INSTAL
  • BunzlLSE: BNZL
  • IDEXNYSE: IEX
  • Lumine GroupTSXV: LMN
  • DoverNYSE: DOV
  • NIBEOM: NIBE-B
  • AddtechOM: ADDT-B
  • Pool CorpNasdaqGS: POOL
  • Enghouse SystemsTSX: ENGH
  • Judges ScientificAIM: JDG
  • Berkshire HathawayNYSE: BRK.B
  • AddLifeOM: ALIF-B
  • MarkelNYSE: MKL
  • TFI InternationalNYSE: TFII
  • Brown & BrownNYSE: BRO
  • HalmaLSE: HLMA
  • DanaherNYSE: DHR
  • Topicus.comTSXV: TOI
  • AMETEKNYSE: AME
  • HexagonOM: HEXA-B
  • IndutradeOM: INDT
  • WatscoNYSE: WSO
  • StorskogenOM: STOR-B
  • discoverIE GroupLSE: DSCV
  • FortiveNYSE: FTV
  • Vitec SoftwareOM: VIT-B
  • HEICONYSE: HEI
  • Bergman & BevingOM: BERG-B
  • TransDigmNYSE: TDG
  • VolatiOM: VOLO
  • IMCDXAMS: IMCD

Where they file

50 companies across 4 filing regimes, each read under its own accounting standard before it is normalized.

United States
22
US GAAP · 10-K and 10-Q on SEC EDGAR
Roper Technologies, Waste Connections, Nordson
Sweden
16
IFRS · Annual and interim reports, Nasdaq Stockholm
Assa Abloy, Lagercrantz Group, Momentum Group
United Kingdom & Europe
7
IFRS · Annual reports via Companies House and the AFM
Diploma, Ashtead Group, Bunzl
Canada
5
IFRS · Annual information forms and MD&A on SEDAR+
Constellation Software, Boyd Group, Lumine Group
Plans

Every plan
cites its filing.

The evidence standard never changes between plans. A plan decides how many fiscal years of each company you can open, and a few tools. A year a plan does not open is shown locked, never as a guess.

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  • Every published fiscal year of each company
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  • Ledger and ruleset history
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