By Lauren Thomas | Photographs by Jessica Foley for WSJ

Brad Jacobs starts every morning with meditation and yoga. He jokes that the "X"s and "O"s he puts in the names of his companies stand for hugs and kisses. He engages employees in group bonding exercises that can last for hours.

The 68-year-old, who has built a career striking more than 500 deals in sleepy industries such as garbage collection and supply-chain logistics, has become an unlikely guru in M&A circles.

He does a lot of the things familiar to any Wall Street takeover artist, like hunting down targets, turning up the pressure to clinch deals and slashing costs while rolling up businesses. But he wraps those tactics in a much different package, bringing an effervescent, feel-good vibe to a world known for ruthlessness and no-nonsense finance speak.

In many M&A deals, buyers don't have much access to the seller's workforce until the transaction closes. Jacobs says he negotiates into his contracts the ability to communicate with staff right after a deal is signed.

"My leadership style is not to lecture...not to impose. It's to listen and understand," Jacobs told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. "On a human level, we're not here to cause misery."

Not long after Jacobs's latest deal in March -- an $11 billion takeover of Beacon Roofing Supply -- employees got a taste of the new boss's management style.

In an exercise organized by Jacobs, employees sat around in a circle and were asked one by one to list off the positive attributes of other people in the circle. Such activities can drag on for hours, over days or even weeks, according to workers who have been involved.

The activities have a purpose. Jacobs thinks job satisfaction ensures everyone is on board for any changes he will need to make after a takeover. In addition to surveying employees to root out what's working and what could be improved, Jacobs evaluates every single role to determine whether it is necessary. Not everyone makes the cut.

A $100,000 goal

After dropping out of college, where he studied piano and mathematics, in the 1970s, Jacobs envisioned a simpler future. "I wanted to make $100,000...I figured I'd be able to live off of that, just meditate and do music and enjoy life," he said.

Then his ability to sniff out opportunities kicked in. In his early 20s, Jacobs said he saw a TV news segment that mentioned Exxon Mobil reaping "obscene" profits. That piqued his curiosity and he started reading up on the oil industry.

Not long after, Jacobs started what would eventually become one of the largest oil brokerage firms, Amerex Oil Associates, and served as CEO from 1979 through 1983. In 1984, he founded another oil-trading company that scaled to over $1 billion in annual revenue.

"I started making $100,000 a week, then $100,000 a day. It kept going and going and going, and I've just never stopped," Jacobs said.

In 1989, Jacobs had another lightbulb moment. He was scanning research reports and came across one about environmental services. That's when he realized he could bring consolidation to unglamorous industries that typically go unnoticed.

He started with garbage collectors, buying up mom-and-pop businesses under a company called United Waste. One of his go-to strategies is using technology to improve operations -- for example, by rerouting garbage trucks to cover pickups more efficiently. Eight years later, he sold United Waste for around $2 billion.

In the following years, he took a similar approach to other industries. United Rentals rolled up equipment-rental businesses, eventually becoming worth more than $40 billion. XPO Logistics targeted transportation and logistics, with annual revenue surpassing $17 billion at its peak.

Jacobs has now rung the bell at the New York Stock Exchange 10 times, second most according to records.

Consolidation usually means job cuts, and Jacobs's companies are no exception. At XPO, he closed warehouses as corporate customers adjusted supply chains. Back-to-back multibillion-dollar acquisitions also raised alarms on Wall Street about his ability to integrate operations. (Jacobs said he managed to double profits at both the acquired businesses in three years.)

XPO eventually got too unwieldy, and Jacobs later led the spinoffs of GXO Logistics and trucking company RXO.

Other deals haven't worked out. In the 1990s, Jacobs wanted to tap into federal funding to repair bridges and tunnels across the country. He bought up firms that rented out equipment for such projects, but said the funding never really came.

"So I bit the bullet, and I sold it all for a half-a-billion-dollar loss, " Jacobs recalled. "You remember that forever."

Keep calm and carry on

Jacobs's latest venture, QXO, targets building products distribution. Beacon initially wouldn't engage in talks, and Jacobs took to LinkedIn (where he counts nearly 100,000 followers) to update the company's employees about QXO's proposal. That put more pressure on Beacon's board and executives to engage, Jacobs said, and he eventually prevailed.

During such high-stress takeovers, Jacobs keeps calm with the help of meditation, a hobby he picked up in high school.

"When you inevitably get derailed a little bit, you've got to notice that, and figure out some way to get back into the good zone," he said.

Jacobs thinks the country's housing shortage and aging commercial buildings bode well for QXO. There is also minimal risk from President Trump's trade war, he said, since most of Beacon's products are made and sold in the U.S. He plans to scale QXO to over $50 billion in annual revenue and, true to form, is rallying employees behind that target.

Janell Munoz, a Beacon branch manager in Orange, Calif., was among the employees who were flown to New York to spend time with Jacobs after the takeover. During one gathering, Jacobs asked everyone to name someone who wasn't present but stood out to them as an "MVP."

Later, Jacobs sent a personal note to each of the MVPs.

Alan Ridge, president of Beacon's waterproofing division, was also surprised when Jacobs hosted a Zoom call hours after the deal was clinched. Ridge had been through two takeovers in his career, and said Jacobs is more engaged than other executives.

For Jacobs, the call was a chance to get to know employees. It was also a chance to start finding out what was working at the company and what he needed to fix.

Write to Lauren Thomas at lauren.thomas@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2025 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)

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