公司
首席执行官面试
彼得麦卡苏兰队参加了一条迂回的途径，成为一名公共公司首席执行官。作为美国德国工业天然气制片人Messer Griesheim Industries的美国普通法律顾问，他经常在收购上致力于收购。在那个能力中，他遇到了一家他认为混乱的公司应该购买：小型局部气体分配器康涅狄格州。他的雇主违反了。不久之后，1981年6月，麦卡苏兰留下了自己的法律实践。八个月后，他已经筹集了足够的钱来购买康涅狄格州的氧气。
波士顿大学法学院毕业生探索了300万美元的销售装备作为投资，以为他的退休和他的孩子大学学费提供资金。他没有梦想在四年内，他会把他的律师事务所成为公司的首席执行官 - 更名为Airgas - 并于1986年12月在纽约证券交易所上市。
Instead of a safe little nest egg, McCausland had stumbled upon a big growth opportunity. He bought into the fragmented gas distribution business at the start of a major consolidation wave. By the time McCausland took the helm, Airgas had bought 17 locally focused competitors and begun to build a national distribution powerhouse. Since then it has made more than 300 additional acquisitions, including its biggest ever -- November's $495 million deal for Linde Group's U.S. bulk gas business.
Radnor，宾夕法尼亚亚军Airgas购买了大气的气体，如二氧化碳，氦气和氧气从散装生产商中，将其包装在气缸中，并将其转向工业和商业用户，如化学公司，医疗服务提供商和花店。长距离运输这些气体是成本禁止的，所以这是一个本地业务;Air Gas的战略一直卷起当地的提供商并利用规模经济。它的工作：该公司截至3月31日止3月31日的2006财年销售额为28.3亿美元，从2005年的23.7亿美元增加了19％。同期每股收益飙升36％，2006财年飙升至1.62美元同年前。最近，Air Gas在截至9月30日截止的季度将销售额增长13％;收益上升了34％。2006年该公司的股票增长了22％，每股约41美元。
McCausland表示，有更多的收购目标可以保持他的分销业务滚动，但他也在考虑从现在开始驾驶Airgas的增长数十年。为此，他正在寻求多元化，投资于一名称为气虎专业产品的两岁单位，销售氨，制冷剂和加工化学品。随着林德交易，他通过收购供应商来反对散装气体价格上涨。
In a recent conversation with Institutional Investor Contributor Hillary Jackson, he talked about future acquisitions and the challenge of pleasing investors focused on the short term. He also sounded off about what he considers runaway CEO compensation in the U.S. (McCausland, who has grown Airgas's share price 40-fold in its 20 years as a public company, made $1.6 million last year.)
亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者：您如何识别收购目标？
麦卡苏兰：这是一个当地市场。到目前为止，您只能运输气瓶，因为运输成本如此之高。我们去所有这些不同的本地市场寻找公司。
What is in the acquisition pipeline?
我想我们将继续购买包装的天然气公司。我们现在拥有大约20％的市场，并且可能在不达到反垄断问题的情况下达到高达35或40％。我们刚开始气虎专业产品，我们希望为该业务添加。该地区有一堆公司在2000万美元到1.5亿美元的公司。我们认为我们可以在未来三到五年内建立大约5亿美元的平台。
你为什么要做林德交易？
This is the first very serious investment we've made in the bulk production business. It's a very good business and a very profitable business, and the timing is very good. Bulk gases are very tightly priced in the U.S. now. These plants give us additional product, taking us from manufacturing 10 percent of our product to 30 percent. If we want to expand our bulk capacity in the future, it will now be much easier.
你会扩大批量容量吗？
我们会机会地看待它。我们认为自己是一个主要产品是天然气的分销公司。我们是一家非常管理的集约化公司，这就是分销所需的。如果我们遇到了良好的机会或我们需要产品，我们可以 - 当然会 - 建立额外的植物。我们的目标是在美国各地的气体中具有良好的成本立场
正如您所知，Praxair是一个划分，即包装气体的2号分销商。是你的收购目标吗？
If they were for sale, we'd definitely be interested. But I don't think they're for sale. Each decade they come up with a different feeling toward their packaged gas business. This decade they like it. They've made some acquisitions in the business recently.
What are the biggest strategic challenges you face?
The major strategic challenge is finding the next growth platform. The further you get away from your core business, the more transformational these things become, the higher the risk. That certainly is a big issue. We have a very valuable distribution platform, with 900 locations over the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Developing strategies to lever that platform to the greatest extent we possibly can -- be it through new marketing programs over the Internet or product line extensions or service line extensions -- that's going to be a strategic challenge.
What do you like the most about running Airgas?
I like the way we built this company and how quickly we can translate things that happen in our stores right up to the numbers that our shareholders get.
你最不喜欢的工作是什么？
我最喜欢的是，最重要的诉讼可能是大多数公共公司CEO所提供的：市场和机构股东非常短期导向。我们被迫对长期进行短期业绩。我认为钟摆已经向短期播放了太远，美国公司受到了伤害。它曾经是公共股东是长期合作伙伴，但现在货币管理人员交易更多。现在，与机构股东相比，私募股权公司看起来像长期持有人。
您会考虑将公司私有吗？
It's something I've thought about from time to time, although it's not something I'm currently thinking about. It's hard to develop a good long-term strategy and find public investors who have the patience to see the thing through and give the strategy a chance. That's why a lot of companies are going private. It is attractive to CEOs who know that they have a strategy that's going to take some time to develop.
您对首席执行官赔偿问题有何看法？
This thing with [former Home Depot CEO Robert] Nardelli just drives me crazy. I think the board of Home Depot should have been fired if there's something wrong with his contract, not Nardelli. I think it's ridiculous that that board would give him that much money to go there and that much money to leave. It has gotten out of hand, and it's a shame. And what these guys on Wall Street make is a shame. [Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO E. Stanley] O'Neal got $48 million last year, and the guy from Goldman got even more [CEO Lloyd Blankfein earned $53 million]. I think that's ridiculous, and it has got to come down. They may be public companies now, but they're being run like private partnerships. I cringe because I would never think of proposing that I make anywhere near what some of these guys have made, and I arguably have created more value for shareholders than most people.
How would you fix the problem?
I'm as much of a free marketer as anybody in the world. I can't stand listening to [House Financial Services Committee chairman] Barney Frank get on the podium and talk about CEO compensation. I think it's just a question of board members looking each other in the eye and saying there is a practical limit to what you can pay a CEO. I think the Home Depot board just did that. The same board that hired and fired Nardelli just hired [new CEO Frank] Blake and paid him a lot less, and none of them would say Blake is a second-rate CEO.