After a massive failure with their domestic fund, WCM launched an international strategy staffed with an operations person with zero investment experience and a business school dropout. This counterintuitive bet on raw talent and a fresh perspective became the foundation for their turnaround and massive growth.

John Elkan's development as a leader was profoundly shaped by his decision to hire outsider Sergio Marchionne to save Fiat. Marchionne not only executed a legendary turnaround but also became a personal mentor to Elkan, demonstrating the value of external expertise in guiding the next generation of a family empire.

The most lucrative exit for a startup is often not an IPO, but an M&A deal within an oligopolistic industry. When 3-4 major players exist, they can be forced into an irrational bidding war driven by the fear of a competitor acquiring the asset, leading to outcomes that are even better than going public.

Under John Elkan, Exor consolidated multiple complex family holding companies (IFI and IFIL) into a single entity. Moving the legal headquarters to the Netherlands provided a competitive tax rate, exemptions on gains and dividends, and regulatory simplicity, streamlining the management of its global assets.

Corporate leaders are incentivized and wired to pursue growth through acquisition, constantly getting bigger. However, they consistently fail at the strategically crucial, but less glamorous, task of divesting assets at the right time, often holding on until value has significantly eroded.

Exor is strategically entering the healthcare sector not through a large acquisition, but by taking significant minority stakes in companies like Philips and Institut Mérieux. This gives them a "front row seat" to learn the industry, build knowledge, and establish credibility for a long-term pivot.

Instead of complaining that its stock trades at a steep discount to its net asset value (NAV), Exor's management pragmatically views this as a chance to invest in themselves. They trimmed their highly appreciated Ferrari stake specifically to fund share buybacks at this significant discount.

Instead of keeping its M&A strategy in-house, Composecure, under Dave Cote, spun out its capital allocation arm into a separate public company, Resolute Holdings. This allows the market to apply a high-growth 'asset manager' multiple to the M&A potential, separate from the core operating business.

The key lesson from Exor is that patient, long-term investing doesn't mean avoiding action. Learned from an early survival crisis, their leadership makes a few specific, intentional decisions each year to refresh the portfolio, demonstrating that decisiveness is critical even with a multi-generational time horizon.