Certainly a fair concern. Acquisitions in and of themselves...

Certainly a fair concern. Acquisitions in and of themselves aren't necessarily the issue (at least as far i'm concerned), but this particular acquisition is clearly of a different scale and risk profile to REH's previous acquisitions.

I'd stop short of saying they've 'bet the company' on this acquisition, but it's not far off it. I would've offered you very long odds on Friday if you'd asked me the question: "how likely do you think it is REH will, in the next 6 months, lever up to 3x EBITDA through making a $1.9bn offshore acquisition at 15x trailing EBITDA?".

I'd be very curious to know what Advent paid for Morsco in 2011 (i couldn't find it). If i were forced to guess, i'd say 'a lot less than 15x'.