Lynn, and his late brother Jim, ran Unibase, a venture-backed start-up, in Salt Lake City until it was acquired by ACS in 1996. Since then, Lynn has risen through the corporate ranks and now serves as the Chief Operating Officer. ACS has grown from about $300 million in revenue to $5.5 billion from 1996 to 2005.For an investment banker, one of the most interesting elements of his discourse, was his take on acquisitions. ACS considers about 300 acquisitions each year and makes about five or six.
Strategically, he noted, ACS will never make an acqusition that will be dilutive to earnings. This takes remarkable discipline. When Lynn was asked why ACS doesn't consider acquiring start-ups, he noted that he doesn't think they are smart enough. Following up, someone pointed out that he had successfully run a start-up before and could do it again. He said he'd recently been offered an opportunity to run a well-funded start-up and turned it down, saying, "it's too hard--I couldn't do it again."
This was a great way to spend an hour!
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