Brad Jacobs

These were the two big shot bankers.

I said, I want to use these bankers.

I want to work with the people who are actually doing the most amount of business in the area, who understand the business well.

And so I did.

And I formed good relationships with them.

I took their advice.

We took it public pretty quickly.

Then I said, after we sold United Ways for $2.5 billion, I want to build on the skill set that we've developed, that we've honed, of doing M&A, of doing integration.

of running a business in a standardized way.

I was in the town next over from Dan Tully, who was the CEO of Merrill Lynch at the time, fantastic man, may he rest in peace.

And Dan, this is the old days when you could meet with the banker and the analyst in the same room.

So Dan set up, and his son, who's also named Dan, set up a series of meetings, I'd say about a dozen meetings, with different parts of Merrill Lynch that had ideas of what should be the next industry that I should consolidate.

Where are there M&A opportunities?

And we looked at healthcare, we looked at financial services, we looked at education, and we looked at equipment rentals.

So that got me into United Rentals.

And United Rentals was a big win, obviously.

United Rentals, I started at, the company was $3.50 a share.

I haven't checked it today, but recently the stock has been $435.

over a hundred bagger.

United Rentals was a durable business that we created.