How to do Deals in Latin America

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Date on our latest courses, upcoming events and expert interviews. Again, that's mascience.com I'm your host, Kisam Patel, CEO and founder of M&A Science. Joining me today is Juan Castaneda recent CEO of the Americas for Smurfit Kappa. Smurfit Kappa Group is Europe's leading corrugated packaging company and one of the leading paper based packaging companies in the world. Traded on London Stock Exchange under skg. Today we're going to talk about how to do deals in Latin America. Juan, how are you doing?

Good morning, Kishum, how are you? And thanks to you and thanks to M and I Science for having me here.

Thank you for taking the time. Juan, when did you start working on M and A and how many deals you've done?

Around 20, more or less since we started this back in the mid-90s. Part of the DNA of SmartFit Capital Group is actually growing by that position. The company had been very successful growing by buying companies in Europe and in the Americas. So I've been there, I could say since the beginning that we started acquiring companies in Colombia and then for the region from the United States.

And you've done deals in which countries?

I've done deals in Argentina, done deals in Colombia, in Mexico and Dominican Republic, in Central America, in Brazil and in.

The U.S. all right, that gets to our theme. What's the biggest difference between buying companies in the US compared to Latin America?

We will need to separate this in two different words. When you come to Latin America and let me stay there, you normally talk about buying mid sized companies, normally family based companies, because when you come from a big corporation from Europe or from the US and try to grow in this area, what you try to do is to buy those kind of companies. So most of the conversation here would be around those type of companies. Obviously there are big local companies in Latin America that are public companies listed in the stock exchange that are properly organized like US Standards, that have proper accounting standards, proper governance, et cetera, et cetera. But let's try to stay here in this conversation, in the other set of companies. I'm talking about companies that are originally family companies that are mid sized. And when you go there, you're going to find several differences from the world that you have. In the US we live in a world of complex regulations. From our standpoint, some countries more than others. If you ask me, Probably Brazil is on top of a company that has very complicated regulations. And I'm talking about regulations from the standpoint of labor regulations and lack of flexibility in terms of labor management. I'm talking about taxes, regulation. Brazil, for instance, has a very complex tax structure at a state level and a federal level. And actually if you go to Brazil, you will find that most of these Companies will have big liabilities in terms of taxes either with the states or the federal government. And I have found through the years that once you sit with the owners and you try to adjust price for the tax liability, they will say no, that's not ability, that's something that we have been handling. And it's basically a rollover tax liability. And they don't like to recognize that tax liability as price adjustment. That's very common in Brazil. Let me tell you. There are also, when you go into labor issues, you will find that there are certain schemes of compensation, shadow compensation, particularly for the upper management that most of the companies have. Either they are paying our country or they are paying another currency or they are paying other ways.

We're talking about passing some dough under the table. Basically.

Yeah, yeah, that's unfortunately that's normal and it happens. It's something that we can hide for different reasons. Structural reasons is that reason. It sometimes it's looking for short term cost savings issues. There are many taxes associated with payrolls here in Latin America. So companies try to save money by avoiding those additional payroll taxes, et cetera, and normalize that. When you come with a serious company, a multinational company that simply cannot accept those kind of schemes like we do, we don't accept. And our first step in buying those companies is to normalize and regularize and bring everything up to standards. Going through that process sometimes is difficult because either it cost to the person or it costs to the company. And in that process you might lose some people. There are also, let's say, gray areas on environmental issues. And it's not because of regulation. On paper, regulation is pretty standard in the America. You have some countries more advanced than others. But let's say on paper all regulation is up to standards. Now compliance is another story and there are several instances in which you go to a company, you look at what's the regulation in terms of environmental and you will find that normally it's very strange to have company that are 100% in compliance with what there is. On paper, accounting practices are not necessarily standardized. It's not that you want to go to mid sized family companies and you're going to buy international accounting standards of ifrs or in compliance in those companies. The issue that I would like to mention also and around titles and property, it's very common that you might find problems in that. And I would say the reason for that is that most of these family companies come through a lot of history behind probably in the process of growing and adding properties or they didn't follow the proper procedures or they didn't find the proper titles in the process. And when you're local, it's easy for you to manage that and to circle around that. But when you come with a big name, when you come with your company, when you come as a multinational company with your reputation that operate totally according to the regulations and according to the local norms, you can leave with gray areas. It's as simple as that whole. While locals tend to be more comfortable operating in a gray areas, managing the day to day with the authorities and the regulations, when you bring your company reputations and your company way to do business into these kind of companies, all the adjustment process sometimes is complicated and you need to be much more specific and much more black and white on these gray areas.

That's a big theme I'm picking up on. Part of this. You almost convinced me not to do any deals in Latin America from everything you described. But I'm sensing that so much of this is around being a larger multinational corporation. You can't have any funny business. So that's where there's so much scrutiny in these areas from the employee labor issues, making sure everybody's doing things properly, the tax, make sure there's no big liabilities there, environmental issues you talked about the property, he's making sure there's the right ownership title and then even the accounting practices behind all this stuff. Can we talk about these individually? I'm just curious to get a sense if they differentiate by countries specifically within.

Latin and Central America.

And how do you go about mitigating some of these risks?

There are some and I guess when you are from outside looking at Latin America, particularly the U.S. the U.S. they don't have sometimes the proper knowledge that even though we classify as Latin America, there are certain way to do in Mexico versus what is in Argentina. Mexico tends to be on the cultural side, much more formal, while Argentina at the end of the day are from Italian origin. So everything is much more informal. And in the middle you find many ways to do things. As I mentioned you before, Brazil for instance is basically a country of regulations. Everything is on paper speak. So in mitigation, at the end of the day you need to understand the local regulation. And to understand the local regulation you need the locals. You need to have local people who understand taxes, local people who understand labor issues, local people who understand legal issues, local people who understand environmental issues. And I would say those are those critical areas for me and you need to work with them. And they need to do the proper due diligence to see where the company is trying to get through the information. Because sometimes part of the problem is that information is not necessarily available in the way that you are normally used to. Starting with the financial statements. You know that you go to a US Company and you will have financial statement reported in a certain way that a certain date. That's not necessarily the norm in this kind of companies. There are delays. So if you want to make a closing based on financial statements on December 30, probably you wouldn't have that until February or March. Something like that happens. Again, I would say a proper due diligence using local people who understand the local regulations and trying to find as much as information as you can from the business that you are acquiring. I don't want to leave with the impression here to the people, Kishon, that everything is as disorganized in Latin America. I'm just trying to stay on the cautious side based on experience. But when you go to a mid sized company, family company, two, three generations, that is what you normally find to buy. Because again, it's normal. The first generation rarely is able is willing to sell a company. The second generation is a transition. Once you get to the third generation, it's much more probable that you find. So those companies on the mid side, family company, they tend to be very informal in every context.

It's a different environment. You, you don't have thousands of private equity firms like you do in the US that have institutionalized a lot of these assets. You have a lot of family owned businesses. You do have a really good point about using local experts and leveraging them so that you can avoid or get around a lot of these challenges and pitfalls.

Local and with good reputation. Kiesen, you will find advisors with very good reputations in every country.

That's what I was going to ask. How do you do that?

It's taken me so long to build a network of subject matter experts here in the US how do you go about that in finding those experts?

Normally there are reference and if you find a legal team in the US they normally hire people which could they work in the different countries. You go to the lawyers, two lawyers in the US and you say hey, who do you when you deal with the business in Mexico or in Argentina there is a network and then on the accounting or the taxes side, you always have the big four present in most of these countries. And then there are experts in environmental issues that also have operations in the different countries. In Brazil you find any big brand of advisors and Consultants that you find in the U.S. mexico as well. Probably you might have some problems in other countries, but in Mexico, Brazil, you can find any big name in experts.

Ask referrals from US context, maybe doing business in Latin America, and then even use those contexts to find other adjacent areas you may need help with, or pick up your favorite brand and go from there. Can we talk more about the cultural aspect of it? Cause I think that is a big component. Outside there's these tactical areas that you have to overcome and leveraging SMEs for that. But in terms of working with other executives to get deals done, are there any specific cultural challenges that you found or maybe distinct by country?

I don't think there is a specific secret or a specific difference. As I tell you, Mexicans in general tend to be much more formal. The way that meetings are conducted. That's when you listen in the US talking about how to deal with business in Japan or how to deal with business in China. You are given certain protocol recommendations of things. Latin America has a small difference. But again, in Latin America there are countries more formal than others. Mexico's, Africa, again, tend to be much more formal, where Argentinians or the Caribbean countries tend to be much more informal. And that means everything from the dress code to the way that you refer to the people, et cetera. But at the end of the day, Kison, let me go back a little bit. You go there to Latin America looking for an acquisition and you are looking obviously for probably market and to grow. You might be looking for some assets good or bad or at least well located or strategically located. But at the end of the day, what you are looking for is people, is a team of people that work with you and are able to actually maintain the business and grow the business with you to bring the best that you can from outside. And you take the best that you found in that business. Because at the end of the day, if you went there and you are willing to acquire that company, it's because you found something that is good and that good was built for that team. So said that it's critical that you maintain that team as much as you can and integrate that team into your team, that you bring the best that they have, you bring the best that you have and you try to make a combination and a proper balance of those two things and make it work. If you are a US Company going into Brazil, for instance, and you try to bring your executives from the U.S. your standard from the U.S. everything at the U.S. side, you are not going to have Easy because there are certain limits on what the people locally want to do, are willing to do, and they are used to do things certain ways. So you have to be flexible and you have to try to balance those two words to try to strike the best of that. Because in the process of making acquisitions, making the strategic choice, finding the target, making due diligence, making the negotiation, that's the easy part. The complicated part comes in integration. And integration is being successful, balancing what you find, but what you bring. I would say part of the success of Smurfit Kappa Group in making acquisitions has been that, that we try to understand that and we bring what we know we do best, but we also try to maintain locally what we know they do well. A combination of those scores through a proper integration process is what gives you success at the end of the day. And again for me, what is critical there is communication and managing of expectations. You need to go there, you need to put faces, you need to bring your people, put the faces there in a table and say clearly to that people, this is what we expect. What are you expecting from us? And agree on the expectations. And with proper communication and continuous communication, I think that might work.

I want to break down the front end of the deal because it sounds like there's a lot of nuances around getting some people alignment there to get things set up. And then we'll talk more about integration, to actually get the execution there to make everything work out. How do you go about sourcing deals?

Several sources. If I maintain a story here, in midsize business, it's very rare that a mid sized business is willing to pay the kind of fees and costs that that using big private investment firms or big bank names are charging for their work. I'm not telling you here that doesn't work. It's just that there are things that you can't pay. Simple as that. So if you're talking about deals around 300 million, $250,400,000,000 on that level, simply paying the big names in banking, in investment banking is not possible. You can afford that. It will take a lot of money from your deals. Yet there are small private investment firms, even Latin America's small boutique firms that probably find you through the ranks and bring deals to the table. But most of the time the targets are found by ourselves. We know our business, we know what we want, we have our strategy set up, we know where we want to be, we have some information about the reputation of the company in the market, in the business. It's not a Big word. So most of the time we actually have a direct approach to the right person in the organization. And if you are looking up, you make this contact in the right moment. Sometimes you simply get your door closed in your face. Sometimes the door is open and you find a way to get the deal done. Using big banks, big names in investment banking is not the norm. It's more small boutique firms or is contacts that you make directly.

How do you reach out to these companies? Are you finding them? Industry events? Are you just sending cold calls, cold emails, writing letters? How do you get a hold of them?

No, sometimes it's direct call, just finding the right person and bringing some to the table, some value to the table for them and for us. Again, it's a small world. You know who is in the paper business in Mexico and you know who are the owners or the managers or who are the decision makers and you just sit with them on the proper environment, I believe with the proper protections from the point of view of antitrust laws and everything. And you sit with them and say, hey, are you interested in making business? It's either let's combine the business or right away are you interested in selling? And sometimes they are.

Do you get those conversations going pretty casual. Maybe just learn about their business and what their goals are and then see if they have that general interest. Or do you have a little more prompt to propose that you're interested in buying them?

Because sometimes the best approach is the direct approach. It's your business is good, we believe your business is good. We like your business, we would like your business. Are you interested or not? There's nothing bad in asking. Sometimes you say to again you say simply no, we are not interested. Okay, we are friends. Sometimes let's say we do open the door to that contact. It's not complicated really.

How do you get them interested? Because I feel like there's got to be some alignment on what the incentive is for that company to want to sell. What is the value of joining your company? How do you get that alignment and get that interest rated?

At the end of the day, it's reputation on both sides. People who are in the business know who Smurfit Kappa Group is. They have seen the deals that we have made through the years in the different countries. Again, it's not a big word. If you go to Argentina, the people who are in the paper business, they know who is Morphit Kappa Group is. They know the deal that we have made in Argentina. They know that at the end of the day, the Shareholders and the employees and everybody who want in the process. So at the end of the day, it's your reputation who precedes you. That's why you get deals done. If you go there and you destroy business and you destroy people, just forget it. But again, when you come here into a family business, at the end of the day, obviously price is quite important. But some of them care about their business. It's the legacy of their parents or grandparents or whatever. It's the people who they employee, which people who have been there for many years and they want their people protected. And we have offered that through the years. They witnessed that through the years in companies that we have acquired in every country, in Mexico, in Argentina, in Colombia, in Ecuador, in Salvador, in the Dominican Republic. So maybe that at least creates curiosity to open the door to have the conversation. If you don't have good reputation, it's impossible. But when you come here and you say, okay, can you give you a fair price? And we will steal your company throughout the years.

Fair point. You get the reputation, how you treat people. How do you overcome the legacy part where you're dealing with family generational businesses and legacy is very important to them, how do you overcome that reservation? When they consider selling to a big.

Company, it's communication and reputation. Kissing and managing those social issues in acquisitions are sometimes are equally critical to managing the financial issues. Again, how do you treat the shareholders? Sometimes they are managers besides shareholders, and it's not sympathy keeping them in the management with good communication and a good set of expectations on both part. Sometimes it's better at least to have them helping you in the integration, in the transition is communication at the end.

Of the day, are there any things.

You do to understand what their incentives are, what their drivers are? I can imagine there's got to be parts where you want to get a sense of how involved they want to be after you do the transaction. If they have certain goals or things like that, I don't know is there any of those things matter as much.

Or no secrets here. It's just asking is what do you want from here? Do you want to stay? Do you want just sign or fly from here? Just asking. We are open to have that conversation. You need flexibility again. If you have an acquisition process in which you say, okay, I come here, I bring my managers, first level, second level managers, everybody out. You fire 10 people, 20 people, 25 people, it's not a good starting. You need to be flexible. You need to understand what is there, the roles of the people. And we have Made mistakes on that because you have a certain set of mind on how a business should be run, how structured should be the management. And then you come here, you find a different structure and your first reaction is, let's change as a structure and let's make this structure similar to what I used to. If you don't understand well the structure that is in place, making that step very quickly, it might be a mistake, it might work, it might not.

What are other mistakes you've made on deals?

That was a critical mistake. Again, I think general, don't understand the structure and the local culture of the organization. Thinking that the financial role of a person is financial role and similar to that you have in Colombia to what you have in the US or Mexico or the sales role is the same. Sometimes it's not. There are certain particularities from organization to organization and you need to understand that first before making any change.

What about red flags? What are red flags to you? That hey, this isn't a deal we should be moving forward with.

When you start finding problems here and there, I used this word before, but sometimes you fall in love with the deal. It's just you have invested time, you know that it fits your strategy very well. You go there and you find, let's say good asset and even a good portfolio of customers. But then you start finding problems in labor issues, compensation here, environmental problems that doesn't have been properly managed, liability that you find in the balance sheet that they don't have proper explanation. The thing that we just mentioned, you even find companies that they don't have the proper permits to operate in certain areas. They are not updated, they don't have the fire authorities permit. And then since you are already in love and you like the circuit, you will say coming in any other marriage, I will fix that after, let's try to manage it. And then we will see along the time they will change, she will change, she will be different or he will be different. And then you try to justify everything along the line because you already set your target. And that's very dangerous because you are this here, this here, that there is. It might get complicated and it might get very costly to get the deal done. So when you start finding red flags here, red flags here, you better get out because it might be too late.

It's hard.

I think the DNA of a deal person is to overcome hurdles. It just happens in every deal you have challenges, so you're wired that way is to problem solve and figure out a way around those challenges. But then there is what you described falling in love with the deal, or we refer to as deal fever, and you're going beyond that to a point of no return that you should have really took some reconsideration and about face went the other way. But how do you distinguish that? How do you find what that threshold is? Because like I said, there's those hurdles you have to go to get the deal done. When do you distinguish between those objective hurdles to get the deal done versus it's time to change directions.

The easiest way to see it is to transfer that into the price that you are paying for the business. At the end of the day, you are committing yourself, your board, your management to a certain multiple of ebitda. And when you start finding the things, it's either more money that you have to put in front or less detail you will have in the future. Because it will cost a lot of money to fix those issues. They are fixable, let me tell you. It's very rare that you can fix them. It's not that they need money and time. So you have to ask yourself, what's the impact on price on those things that you're finding? And are you willing to live with that problem and with the risk for a year or a year and a half that will take to fix the problem? And then are the owners willing to give the proper reps and guarantees on those problems that you know that you find? And that's very common, for instance, in environmental issues, because you can correct the future. But there is a pastor, and that pass can be costly. A company that has been dumping waste in a river or in a landfill or whatever, and is not properly authorized and is not properly managed, there is a real liability there. And probably if you are Martinez and Martinez company, it doesn't matter because you are local, you have been growing the locals. But with your smartphone Capper group, the standards are different and the level of demand are different. So you can correct the future. Yes, but the past is there and you need the proper reps and warranties. And when you go there and you say to the shareholders, okay, I need your reps, that if there is a problem here, you're going to respond with that. And that means having a proper escrow account or a proper depositing guarantee. And they say that's a red flag. I wouldn't say there are a set of rules. But again, price is an issue. It's how the shareholders are willing to work with you in solving the problems. And how much time are you willing to live with that risk in the Future.

It sounds like all this funnels up to the whole big picture. Consideration that what ultimately is going to be that impact and allowing that to be that point of realization. If this isn't worth doing it or not. Do you ever spend like hundreds of thousands of dollars in diligence and then walk out of a deal?

That's part of the cost of doing business.

That's how I feel like the hard part. Like I couldn't let that go.

We are a company used to acquire companies. We know that because that is a cost. And we know that sometimes you need to bet some money on if you want to do business. Otherwise it's impossible or otherwise you will buy a bad quality business. But yes, yes, there are costs associated with that, sometimes are millions, but still that initial investment gives you a lot of peace of mind in the future, let me tell you.

Let's talk about the more important part, value creation. How do we actually make these deals successful? Which is integration.

Integration. Yeah. I could say you need to set your own expectations. You need to have clear what you want from the business. Sometimes you have a big strategic plan. I need, for instance, to have my footprint in Brazil and that's your target. And then you acquire the company in Brazil and then you say, okay, now I'm here, now what? That's not enough. You need to have your expectations very clear and what you expect for that business in terms of really the performance and the market share and the margins. And that's the first thing that you need to know. And then you need to sit down with the new management, the one that you choose. Either it's the former manager that you decided to left to live there, or it's a new manager that you're bringing. Sit with them and say, these are expectations. What are yours? What are yours? Let's work through this and let's make this possible. We had a case in the past in which we set a pro forma for a company that was acquired. We set a target there and objectives there. We sat with the new management, we shared with them, we asked for their input to build a common target. They said yes to everything, which is pretty normal at the beginning. And then along the way you start feeling that you had made a mistake because you had set your targets for us and they didn't tell you at the beginning. So it was frustrating for them, it was frustrating for us. It was a lot of wasting time there, wasting efforts. Sit with the people, sit with the new team. Set realistic expectations on both sides. That's a critical part and then proper follow up. Because it's not about only setting targets. You need to set targets for the first month, the first three months, six months, the year, and make a proper follow up. There are certain urgencies. For instance, we go to buy a business and the first order of businesses, this is SmartFit car parkour code of conduct. This is the way that we like to do business. This is the way that we need you to conduct business. And that can wait a month or two months or three months. That has to be done the first week. And then safety standards. We have safety as a value and we expect the company to adapt to certain safety standards in three months. Is that realistic? So you need to build on that and then every other aspect of the business. Productivity, financial reporting, margins, et cetera, et cetera.

What do you do before closing to set the deal up for success?

We do that through the process. We set expectations. Because once you make the closing, everything just start at a different pace and you need to be there and you need to have a plan for day one. You can expect to make the closing to start your plan. You need to have a plan for day one. And we have pretty much standardized that through the years. We have created our own standard. What we want the date of the closing, what we want the next day of the closing, what we want the first week of the closing. In terms of the basics in that the company in which the company doesn't have, let's say, options like code of conduit, safety, et cetera, et cetera.

What are the must haves you think that are real critical that you do have set up before close to make sure there's good alignment and that things are going to go in the right direction.

I mentioned the code of conduct. I think that is important. People need to know the way that the business operates in the future. Are you willing to work with us under these new rules? Yes or no? If no, that's a given, you are out. I would say safety is another big issue for us. We are very proud of our safety record in every operation. So we are willing to invest training, we are willing to invest money. But at the end, we need people to operate safely for their own good and for the good of their teammates. So those are the kind of things that are for us, black and white. Establishing a proper reporting system is very critical for us and we try to do that very quickly. We give a lot of autonomy to our different plans and operations, but in return we expect accountability and report.

Fair trade. What are other lessons learned? What Are other things you could teach me?

My main lesson is the easy part is up to the closing. The difficult part, start after the closing. Managing expectations, managing culture, guaranteeing a proper integration. I could say making a proper due diligence with the right experts. Proper knowledge of the local issues is quite important. And yet that might cost money, but it's money well invested in communication with the former shareholders, communication with the former management and the management that you have decided to live in place. For me, that that's critical and that might come for language also. And I'm talking about communication here. But again you have in your own organization people who are able to go to Brazil and speak Portuguese with the different levels of the operation, because obviously you will find the upper management, the general manager, probably the second level, who speak proper English. But that limit your knowledge to what those people want to share with you. And if you want to make a proper due diligence and you go to the plant floor and talk to the people and see what they are telling you, it's important that you speak the language and you are able to understand them.

How's the culture of negotiations? I don't know if you notice like a big difference in how deals are negotiated in terms of putting a price going back and forth. Do you split the difference or not? Do you see that change country by country?

I don't think there are big difference. It's very much similar in every country. It's a negotiation. Yeah.

What do you do? What do you do? Kind of give yourself like a 20% room to move your price around.

How do you do it?

We try to be very clear from the beginning on what's our offer. And we don't have a lot of room really to negotiate because again, you might put an offer there at the beginning without having proper knowledge of the company. But what you have done, your due diligence, your options are very limited. Let me tell you. It's not that 20%. Maybe you can adjust here and adjust there. It's not a big swing because at the end of the day you have your targets very clear. I'm willing to pay a multiple EBITDA here in this country, because this is what I believe this is what this business worth in this country. And that's it. And at least that you can find more synergies. It's not that you have a lot of space in terms of pricing.

I think the bigger difference is going from the multinational corporation to a smaller company in terms of difference of negotiation approaches. Juan, what's the craziest thing you've seen.

In M and A. I was offered once a business in a country actually by a small boutique investment firm. And they set up this meeting with the owner, a long trip and we sit with the owner and literally the guy opened a notebook written by hand. The guy had what he believes what the value of the business. So the guy had, Okay, I have 20 acres of land and I have X price per acre. That's this million dollars. I have this machine that I bought in this year at this price adjusted by inflation. This is the value of the business. And the guy had the exercise made by hand, line by line. And after two patients, the guy has the price of my business is this one. And literally the guy believed that the way to actually negotiate a business he wasn't properly, let's say, coached by the bankers. I guess they only took care of the social part. We're going to meet these people and they might be interested in buying the business. And the guy had prepared the information like that and trying to change his mind and say, okay guys, talking about financial statements and cash flows and projected cash flows, that was like speaking Chinese.

He just itemized all the assets. So wouldn't that be in your favor?

No, no, no, it was a big.

Number, just oh, so it was unrealistic. So he itemized it.

Just forget about that. Obviously that deal was never done. But it happened. But it happened, believe it.

Yeah, the perception of value is quite different.

Again, we spent almost 15 years looking for a target that might be crazy. And I think it comes like crazy. And after 15 years of contacting the first time these people, we found the right moment to do the business. Because again, most of these processes are not opportunistic. You need to be with the right people at the right moment. A change of generation, lack of management, change of the condition of business, change of the tax regulation generation are intended to discard the business anyway. And you need there is a tax regulation that will change. It will be more expensive to do that so that try to accelerate things that happened in the US when there were to be a change in the capital gain tax. I don't know if you remember, but at that year, I guess it was 2011 of 12 business that we're planning to actually being sold. It's just accelerate the process.

Yeah, all those factors come in play. There's a lot that comes in play. And I think you had a good emphasis about having those relationships in place because any of these material events could come up that would prompt a sale. And if you have that relationship, you.

Have leverage, you need to be there, you need to be present and you need to have your reputation and a good reputation. If you go to a country and you destroy business and you destroy market, just forget it. At the end of the day is your name who precedes you.

This has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time with me, helping me become a better M and a scientist.

Thank you very much and I hope there are some things of value for your subscribers here and can apply some of these things that we have shared here in the future.

Hey those of you still with us, thank you and until next time, here's to the deal. Foreign.

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