The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that sometimes an acquisition starts out looking dodgy but transforms the organization for the better over the course of many years. The Globe's guest columnist Philip MacKellar writes that Enerflex's purchase of Exterran in 2022 exemplifies this point. The deal was an all-share transaction that valued the enterprise at $735-million (U.S.) and saw Enerflex pay an 18-per-cent premium to Exterran's predeal valuation. Enerflex ended up controlling 72.5 per cent of the combined entity, but the deal looked expensive and carried some potentially ugly litigation related to a 2015 labour dispute in Mexico. To fund this transaction, Enerflex took on a lot of debt. Despite the executive team's bullishness, the market punished Enerflex and the stock did not consistently move above where it was trading prior to the deal's announcement until late 2024. Then, after years of stagnation, the benefits of integration started to appear: sales climbed, margins improved as costs were cut, and cash flows expanded. Macroeconomic conditions brightened, the Mexican legal case was resolved in Enerflex's favour, and the C-suite diligently paid down debt. The stock is now expensive.