The big squeeze: when bottlenecks work to your advantage

About this episode

Mike Taylor discusses how companies can leverage bottlenecks to gain pricing power and long-term value.

Bottlenecks often act as constraints on growth, but companies that create funnels through them can gain pricing power and capture long-term value. Investment manager Mike Taylor reveals some of the companies he thinks achieve this best and how he spots such pinch points before they fully form. Mike Taylor is a Baillie Gifford partner, an investment manager in its Global Alpha Strategy and a co-manager of The Monks Investment Trust. In this conversation, he tells Short Briefings… host Leo Kelion about how bottlenecks can confer an advantage on companies that sit astride them. That includes those that serve a mismatch between supply and demand created by others, and those whose products and services create a new pinch point, which they control. In addition, he explains why mixing a cocktail of bottlenecks in his portfolios can deliver smoother growth for their shareholders. Portfolio companies discussed include: Medpace – the drug and biologic contract research organisation Games Workshop – the maker of the Warhammer tabletop battle games Tidewater – the provider of offshore vessels to the oil and gas sector Freeport-McMoRan – the mining company that produces gold and copper, among…

People in this episode

Host: Leo Kelion

Guest: Mike Taylor

Topics covered

• bottlenecks
• pricing power
• long-term value
• investment strategy
• supply and demand
• portfolio management

Keywords

• bottlenecks
• pricing power
• investment
• portfolio
• supply and demand
• long-term growth
• companies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Baillie Gifford, Medpace, Games Workshop, Tidewater, Freeport-McMoRan, DISCO, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix

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