Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25

0.569 - 22.985 Scott Becker

This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Rolls-Royce and companies can still be turned around. So think about Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce is a car maker, but it's more an engine maker and a lot of other things. A couple of years ago, it was essentially a burning platform, completely out of control, losing money hand over foot.

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The CEO came in, smartly cut cost, refocused their business, and now the stock is thriving in an incredible way. It's up 14% yesterday, but more so it's up a ton over the last couple of years since the CEO took over it and took the right steps. And one of the things about leadership is,

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It is often unpopular to do the right things, and you don't get the accolades for it until a couple years later. This is a CEO that came up in under tremendous stress, tremendous pressure, tremendous criticism for the slashing of costs, the slashing of everything else, and so forth. And it's come out the other side in an incredibly better positioned company.

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So I guess the lesson today is you have to have clarity about what you're trying to accomplish, why you're trying to accomplish it. You have to go ahead and do it. You gotta be willing to take the criticism on the front end. Then you gotta make sure it works out on the back end. So it's not easy. But it's something to be applauded versus discouraged.

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Now, I don't know if there's comparisons to Doge. I don't know what makes them, because I think it's a very, very different situation. But clearly, there's a need in our federal government to cut some costs. But that's not the purpose of this podcast. Here, the purpose of the podcast is to applaud the leadership of Rolls-Royce.