QXO’s Building Spree: A Tale of Bricks and Billions

Now, a month or so back, this here company called QXO – a right ambitious outfit, if I do say so myself – hinted they were fixin’ to go shoppin’. Said they’d likely be acquirin’ somebody within the next six months. Wall Street, bless its heart, gets all riled up over such whispers. And today, lo and behold, they announced a purchase, and the market, well, it near ’bout jumped out of its boots.

QXO shares, they done soared this mornin’ – a good twelve and a half percent, if you can credit it! As of late this mornin’, they were still up a hefty eleven and a third percent. Folks seem to think this is a good thing. And generally, when a stock goes up, somebody’s makin’ money. Though who exactly, and at whose expense, is a question for a philosopher, not a financial writer, and certainly not me.

Buildin’ a Pow’rous Concern

This QXO, you see, was started by a fella named Brad Jacobs a couple of years back. His notion was to disrupt the buildin’ supply business – a business, mind you, that’s been doin’ things pretty much the same way for a century or more. He aimed to do it with technology, and a heap of capital. Last month, they managed to gather three billion dollars – a sum that’d make Croesus blush – led by those folks at Apollo Global Management. Now, Apollo didn’t just hand over the money for nothin’. They stipulated that QXO had to use it to buy another company by July of ’26. A condition, you see, to ensure some action, some bustle, some growth.

And today, they announced they’d done just that. They’re buyin’ Kodiak Buildin’ Partners for two and a quarter billion dollars – two billion in cash, and the rest in stock. Kodiak, it turns out, is a distributor of buildin’ supplies – lumber, trusses, windows, doors, the whole kit and caboodle. They did about two and a half billion in sales last year. A considerable sum, even in these inflated times.

The timin’ of it all seems…fortuitous. If the buildin’ business picks up again – and Lord knows, it’s been a bit sluggish of late – QXO stands to benefit handsomely. And so, naturally, do its shareholders. That explains why the stock’s hit a 52-week high. And I reckon there’s more to come, if Jacobs has his way. He’s got a plan, see, an acquisitive plan. He aims to keep buyin’ up companies, buildin’ a veritable empire of buildin’ supplies. It’s a grand ambition, and in this country, we do admire a fella with ambition…even if it’s mostly about makin’ a profit.

2026-02-11 18:52

Buildin’ a Pow’rous Concern

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