Paul Pindar stepping down as CEO of Capita yesterday (see Capita’s Pindar goes back to his roots) seemed like very much the End of an Era for me too.
I’ve known Pindar, and the co-founder of Capita - Rod Aldridge, since before their IPO in 1989. I’ve followed them both and their company closely since. Indeed I have been a shareholder for over 20 years.
I well remember back in 1999, the FTSE at long last introduced an IT Index. When I looked through the list of constituent companies, Capita was absent and I immediately ‘phoned Pindar to ask ‘Why?’. He basically said “I wouldn’t want to be in an index that had Misys as a member”. The decision to stay out was sound as they then didn’t get hammered in the dot.com crash.
Indeed, Capita’s performance has been the best you can get. Since their 1989 IPO, Capita has increased EPS by over 180x and their share price by over 200x. Indeed, if you include reinvested dividends etc, the TSR since 1989 in over 300x. They don’t come better than that in tech or outside.
Capita is also one of only two remaining Holway Boring Award holders (the other is Sage). I gave it first to Aldridge when Capita had achieved 10 years of uninterrupted EPS growth. Then, at my ‘The Last Time’ presentation for the Prince’s Trust in Sept 12, I gave another for 20+ years of uninterrupted EPS growth to Paul Pindar.
At that time I also gave a ‘20+’ Boring Award to Paul Walker at Sage. Both were accountants. Both had extremely long tenures as CEO of their FTSE100 companies. Both have since stepped down. In a tech world where the pace of change is now lightning speed, will we see their like again?