Broken Moats on X
$SLP buyout today ends an ugly few years for the company. The core simulation software business, even in this ai world, still presents lots of value as key models are used by the FDA in drug approval process. But the management team after the founder stepped back destroyed the company with one destructive acquisition after another. Diluted the software with a heavy concentration on commoditized services revenue and less differentiated software assets, all purchased at high multiples to show "revenue growth". Mgmt destroyed the free cash flow, decimated the share price over the tenure but did allow management to rack up steadily increased compensation for themselves by growing the "size" of the company. A good case study in how poor management can take a wide moat business and turn it into a lousy one pretty fast. I imagine the new PE owners can extract out the bad business and excessive costs and generate a good return focusing on the original assets.
