Consolidation--Moguls of M&A

Thompson: Because we emphasize the continuity of management as a part of our initial evaluation of a company, it is very rare for a plant president not to remain in place after the acquisition.

We feel strongly that these businesses should be run on a day-to-day basis at the local level (our decentralized philosophy) and so we rely heavily on the management that has achieved the results that convinced us to buy the company in the first place.