Our guests on the show this week were Scott King and Jeff Gorman, the CEO and Executive Chairman, respectively, of The Gorman-Rupp Company, a $700 million market cap company that designs, manufactures, and sells pumps and pump systems to customers all over the world. 2022 has been quite an eventful year for the company. Earlier in the year, Jeff Gorman stepped back to Executive Chairman, allowing Scott to become the CEO, despite not having the Gorman last name. The company also completed a very large acquisition of a company called Fill-Rite. Given those events and all of the other challenges in the world today, I was excited to speak with Scott and Jeff about:

• The timing of the management transition and the expectation that Scott continues the company’s long history of dividend increases;
• The rationale for the Fill-Rite deal and why now was the right time to take a big swing—with some leverage;
• The importance of culture and the family-like values that have persisted over the last 90 years;
• Where the company is investing in technology and innovation; and
• How the company approaches tough economic times given all of the different crises the company has weathered during its long history

For full disclosure, Cove Street is not a GRC shareholder.

Please enjoy the interview at the following sites:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/putting-the-customer-first-for-90-years-with-scott/id1579124518?i=1000576389964
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ZQBh4FeVgEGLUBW0HeKGD
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDrX8hW2vlE
Podbean: https://compounders.podbean.com/e/putting-the-customer-first-for-90-years-with-scott-king-ceo-and-jeff-gorman-executive-chairman-of-the-gorman-rupp-company-nyse-grc/

As always, if you have any comments, feedback, or guest recommendations, please contact us at podcast@covestreetcapital.com. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/CompoundersPod.

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