I think that if there were obvious synergies, that REH would be...

I think that if there were obvious synergies, that REH would be making much noise about it in its CR sell job.

One thing is certain, if the acquiree is going to have its margins come up to resemble those of REH, to even a moderate degree, then its balance sheet will have to start resembling that of REH (here's looking at you PPE + inventories).

So the way I see it, we're either going to have moderate growth resembling that of the wider US target market. Or, we are going to have greater growth via margin expansion, which will require massive capex (ie book value growth long before we see any comensurate earnings growth).

Not hard to be "earnings accretive" when the bulk of the acquisition is funded via cheap debt, rather than equity. Let's hope it stays cheap.

But for now, let's not dampen the market enthusiasm, and all party like it's 1999!