Somero: History & Aftermarket Monetization

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I've been speaking to a few contractors and sales managers, but I'm fairly early on in terms of understanding Somero and the history of the company. I have a bunch of topics, but I think it would be very useful if you could walk me through Somero's history. I saw that Dover bought it and then sold it again, so I'm keen to know the background there.

What really helped them was Walmart. When Walmart was building their stores and warehouses, they required floors with a certain levelness and flatness, specifying the use of a laser screed in their agreements. Walmart's adoption of the technology accelerated the business's growth. Towards the latter part of the 90s, Paul and Dave decided they didn't want to run the business. They enjoyed creating something but weren't interested in managing it, as they were contractors at heart. They sold the business to a private equity firm to exit and monetize their investment, fully stepping away from day-to-day operations.

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How penetrated is it in developed markets?

For large projects, which I define as more than 20,000 square feet, in mature markets like Europe, Australia, and the US, a laser screed is used in the high 90s percentage of cases. For smaller footprint buildings, it's not 100%, but it's still the majority, maybe two-thirds or 75%. So, growth in developed markets for laser screeds is limited. I don't have an exact number for it.

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Regarding the products, you mentioned Sky Screed and the residential product. Was there any substantial evolution in the product mix over the years? Were new products becoming successful or any new initiatives? I'm trying to understand how much innovation was involved.

A lot of attention was paid to increasing the addressable market through adjacent products, not necessarily laser screeds, but similar products. For example, the Line Dragon, which is a concrete hose pulling and placing solution, automates the process of moving concrete hoses around the job site with remote-controlled equipment. This created a new market. We bought a small company with a similar product and combined it. This is currently generating about $3 to $4 million in revenue. Other products like the Broom + Cure, which is a finishing product for external slabs, were added to the portfolio. These are $4 to $5 million products that help increase the products we can sell to our customer base. However, there's a limitation on how much more you can sell to core customers, so you need to target different market segments.

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