QXO rings the bell on Wall Street
NEW YORK CITY—With a ceremonial ringing of the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, QXO began trading on the Big Board Jan. 17, after initially trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
QXO is the company formed in 2023 by billionaire businessman Brad Jacobs, who envisions a tech-forward new giant in the $800 billion building products distribution industry. The company’s NYSE launch came in the same week that it aggressively pushed its $11 billion bid to acquire Herndon, Va.-based Beacon Roofing Supply.
Brad Jacobs, no stranger to bell-ringing on the stock exchange, performed the honor at precisely 9:30 a.m. Friday morning. He’s rang no fewer than nine bells during the course of his entrepreneurial career that included the founding of UnitedRentals and XPO (formerly Express-1 Expedited Solutions).
“I still get goosebumps,” Jacobs said before the market opened to an assembly of his team, supporters and guests.
Jacobs, the author of “How to Make a Few Billion Dollars,” added: “Teamwork makes the dream work. It’s a cliche, and it’s a good one. So it’s not just me ringing the bell. I’m here for all of us.”
In monetary terms, Jacobs described his vision for QXO as a $50 billion player in the building products distribution space. He sees technology as a difference maker, and the building products distribution industry as ripe for a tech-infusion. In November, it was announced that former Target executive Ashwin Rao would become QXO’s chief artificial intelligence officer.
In addition to technology, M&A will be a major focus for the company, which appears to be fishing in deep waters. In addition to the $11 billion bid for Beacon Roofing Supply, QXO bid a reported $9.4 billion for Rexel, the French electrical giant. Rexel decided against pursuing the deal.
In the more recent bid for Beacon and in an open letter to Beacon Chairman Stuart Randle, Brad Jacobs said QXO is “ready to move quickly” with some “$5 billion of cash on hand.” Also in the letter, Jacobs criticized Beacon for what he described as “more than five months of anti-shareholder actions designed to frustrate a transaction.”
QXO offered $124.25 per share, representing a 14% premium above Beacons’s stock price of $108.85 on Jan. 14.
Beacon replied that its board of directors "thoroughly evaluated" the QXO offer before rejecting it on the grounds that it undervalued Beacon’s prospects for growth.
On its first day of trading on the NYSE, the ticker symbol QXO opened at 14.00 and ranged through the day from 13.63 to 14.23.