The Ledger ResearchPrivate

The Front Office

Scouting report · QXO

Brad Jacobs

  • Chairman & CEO, QXO since 2024-06src

Took control of QXO in June 2024 with a $1bn investment; Chairman & CEO

—thin record

Not ranked yet

Scouting sheet

as of 24 Sep 2026
Delivers guidance—no promises on the record yet
Answers the question—no call reviewed yet
Capital allocation—company not reviewed yet
Pay design5563% performance-conditioned · ebitda, revenue, relative tsr, time only · 97.6% for · company lost money
Skin in the game—no holding or price on file
Age
69src
In the role
2 yr
Promises scored
0
Hit rate
—
Dodges / 100 answers
—
Airtime on calls
—
Every promise, oldest firstno scored promises yet

What to weigh

Watch 6

  • Control sits with him. JPE designates board nominees under the charter (40% of seats while the investors hold 30-45% of voting power), and under the stockholders agreement the other 2024 investors vote for JPE's nominees and as JPE directs on most other matters, and may not sell before 2029-06-06src
  • Mega-grant: the 2024 award (3.83m RSUs plus 7.12m PSUs at target) carried a grant-date value of $188.2m and is meant to cover five years. The first PSU tranche was measured against JPE's $4.57 entry price and vested at 225% of target in January 2026src
  • Related party: his son-in-law is a paid QXO executive (see background)src
  • The 2026 say-on-pay tally counts the convertible preferred as if converted, and JPE holds 900,000 of the 1,000,000 preferred shares, so his own votes are in the 97.6% approvalsrc
  • FY2025 missed its incentive targets: Adjusted EBITDA came in below threshold and revenue at 95.4% of target. Management asked the committee to cut the payout (38.5% of target by formula) to zero, and it did. GAAP net loss was $279.4msrc
  • Key-person risk: the proxy's forward-looking-statement risks name dependence on him as chairman and CEO. Ken West (from Honeywell) became President & COO on 2026-09-01 (8K-2026-08-24)src

In their favour 1

  • Beneficially owns 35.8% (395.6m shares, mostly JPE's convertible preferred and warrants) and 88x his salary under the ownership guideline. After-tax shares from his awards cannot be sold before 2029-12-31src

Career

  1. 2024 – now
    QXO, Inc.src
    Chairman & CEO
    Since 2024-06-06; QXO was SilverSun Technologies until the JPE-led $1bn Equity Investment closed (10-K)
  2. 2022 – 2025
    XPO, Inc.src
    Executive Chairman
    2022-11-01 to 2025-12-31
  3. 2011 – 2022
    XPO, Inc.src
    Chairman & CEO
    2011-09-02 to 2022-11-01
  4. 1997 – 2007
    United Rentals, Inc.src
    Founder; Chairman & CEO, then Executive Chairman
    Proxy says six years as Chairman & CEO and four more as Executive Chairman from the 1997 founding; the end years are counted from that, not stated
  5. 1989 – 1997
    United Waste Systems, Inc.src
    Founder; Chairman & CEO
    Proxy says eight years as Chairman & CEO from the 1989 founding

Not located: 2007-2011, between United Rentals and XPO, is not described in the proxy or 10-K; he is managing member of Jacobs Private Equity, LLC and JPE II but the filings give no start dates

Achievements

  • Founded United Waste Systems (1989) and United Rentals (1997) and ran both as Chairman & CEO before XPOsrc
  • Chairman & CEO of XPO 2011-2022, then Executive Chairman to end-2025; non-executive chairman of GXO (from 2021-08) and RXO (from 2022-11)src
  • Won Beacon Roofing Supply through a hostile tender after its board resisted; Beacon's board recommended the $124.35-a-share offer in April 2025src
  • Closed Beacon on 2025-04-29, making QXO North America's largest listed roofing and building-products distributor by the proxy's accountsrc
  • Closed Kodiak Building Partners on 2026-04-01 for $2.0bn cash plus 13,157,895 QXO sharessrc
  • Closed the TopBuild acquisition on 2026-07-01src
  • The proxy states a target of $50bn of annual revenue within the next decade, through acquisitions, greenfields and operating transformationsrc

Education

  • Bennington College, none (attended) Mathematics and musicsrc

Background

  • Family The proxy discloses that his son-in-law is employed as an executive of QXO, with total annual cash pay above $120,000 in 2024 and 2025 (Item 404 related-party disclosure)src
  • Investing Managing member of Jacobs Private Equity, LLC and Jacobs Private Equity II, LLC; JPE II put up most of the $1bn June 2024 investment at $4.566 a share (convertible preferred plus warrants) that gave him controlsrc
  • Boards No other public-company boards as of the 2026 proxy. He left the XPO and GXO chairs on 2025-12-31 and the RXO chair on 2025-05-21src
  • In the press Author of How to Make a Few Billion Dollars (Greenleaf, 2024), on his approach to building companies; a follow-up appeared in 2025src
  • Other QXO's June 2025 unsolicited offer for GMS lost to Home Depot's SRS, which agreed to buy GMS at $110 a share, above QXO's offersrc
  • Other Five-year employment agreement: salary and target bonus step up with the revenue run rate, from $950k/135% at $1-5bn to $1.7m/200% above $30bn; 2.99x salary plus bonus on a change-in-control terminationsrc

The promise ledger

No promise on the record yet: the research routine has not scored this company's guidance.

Sources

14
  1. Filing QXO, Inc. DEF 14A for the 2026 annual meeting (accession 0001104659-26-033501) · 2026-03-24
  2. Filing QXO, Inc. 10-K for FY2025, Information about our Executive Officers (0001628280-26-012601) · 2026-02-27
  3. Filing QXO, Inc. 8-K Item 5.07, 2026 annual meeting results (0001628280-26-032869) · 2026-05-08
  4. Filing QXO, Inc. 8-K Item 5.02, Ken West appointed President & COO (0000950142-26-002421) · 2026-08-24
  5. Filing QXO, Inc. 8-K Item 2.01, Kodiak Building Partners acquisition completed (0000950142-26-000982) · 2026-04-01
  6. Filing QXO, Inc. 8-K Items 2.01/5.02, TopBuild acquisition completed (0001104659-26-079864) · 2026-07-01
  7. Filing Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 5 by Jacobs Private Equity II, LLC and Bradley S. Jacobs on QXO (0000950142-26-001155) · 2026-04-20
  8. Filing SEC XBRL companyconcept us-gaap/NetIncomeLoss, CIK 1236275 (FY2025 10-K, 0001628280-26-012601) · 2026-02-27
  9. Filing Form 4, Bradley S. Jacobs (reporting CIK 1054518), PSU vesting of 2026-01-15 with tax withholding (0000950142-26-000189) · 2026-01-20
  10. Filing Form 4, Bradley S. Jacobs, RSU vesting of 2025-12-31 with tax withholding (0000950142-26-000026) · 2026-01-05
  11. Web search result WebSearch: Brad Jacobs (businessman), Wikipedia (studied mathematics and music at Bennington College and Brown University; left in 1976 without a degree) · 2026-09-24
  12. Web search result WebSearch: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, Brad Jacobs (Greenleaf Book Group, 2024) · 2026-09-24
  13. Web search result WebSearch: QXO launches hostile tender offer to acquire Beacon Roofing for $11 billion in cash (InsideArbitrage, January 2025) · 2026-09-24
  14. Web search result WebSearch: Home Depot pushes QXO out of GMS pursuit (Roofing Contractor, 2025) · 2026-09-24