The issue with many serial acquirers is that their multiples went absolutely bonkers over time.

Vitec's sales multiple went up 12x between 2013 and 2022. $VITB

$CSU's went from roughly 2x in 2012 to above 8x in 2022.

$TOI's multiple peaked at 15.8x in 2021 (now 4.4x)

$LMN's multiple got cut in half in around 6 months.

Hard to argue that "mean reversion neglect" wasn't a major error by many investors?