Brad Jacobs on His Big Bet on Building Insulation

“The acquisition of Beacon following the acquisition of Kodiak, which is followed now by the acquisition of TopBuild, takes us from eleven months ago where we had no building products revenue, let alone EBITDA, to the second largest publicly traded building products distributor in North America with more than $18,000,000,000 in combined company revenue and more than $2,000,000,000 of combined adjusted EBITDA. It's a big deal in the industry and a big deal in the market as a whole.”

“We will get a lot of business from data centers, but not just on the installation. Data centers need roofs too. Data centers need waterproofing, very much so. Data centers often need lumber related products. So so data centers are big consumers of building products. Now TopBuild itself has single digit percentage exposure to data centers, but it's very fast growing.”

“TopBuild is the largest installer and distributor of insulation. And as you were just saying, everybody needs insulation. Every house needs insulation in the walls. Every office building needs insulation everywhere. It's a needed product, and it's not going anywhere.”

“The old economy is still here. It's not generative AI, but it's arguably maybe it's even more important. You couldn't have the new economy without cooling and heating. The actual business of making things and moving things, heating and cooling, is very much enmeshed with the new economy, which is all about generative AI.”

“When we complete the merger, we'll be number one in insulation, we'll be the second biggest in roofing, will be number one in waterproofing, and will hold number one or number two positions in certain geographies within lumber and building materials. So we'll have a huge addressable market, several $100,000,000,000.”