Pool Corporation (NasdaqGS:POOL) is looking for acquisitions. During the company?s first quarter 2024 conference call, Melanie M. Hart, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer said that "Our expectation for operating expenses remain relatively unchanged. Volume-related expenses will continue to correlate with business activity, while certain inflation affected expenses, such as rent, insurance and wages, will increase compared to last year.

Performance-based incentive compensation will only increase based on operating income improvements achieved as it will reflect actual performance relative to performance plans. Strategic growth-oriented expenses, such as investments in sales center network expansion, tuck-in acquisitions and ongoing technology development will continue as we gain share and work to improve our service offering". Pete Arvan, President and Chief Executive Officer said that "Yes.

I mean I would tell you, we're always very mindful of the balance sheet and making sure that we are responsible allocators of capital. We look at -- when we look at acquisitions, we look for a strategic fit and we also look for a cultural fit. And then we also look for an economic equation that makes sense.

So the good news about POOLCORP is we have a tremendously strong balance sheet. And we also have a very strong leadership team, both of which are required, not only to execute an acquisition but to execute and integrate an acquisition and realize the savings. But with that very talented management team and a very strong balance sheet, it also gives us the ability to look at deals and say, if they make sense financially, then we would do them.

But if not, we also have the ability and, frankly, a superior value proposition in almost all cases to say if we need additional capacity that we can do it from a greenfield perspective. So, we are -- have always been very disciplined allocators of capital. We'll pay a fair price when we buy businesses.

We bought a lot of businesses over the years. We continue to do acquisitions. But I wouldn't look for us to say, "well, we're going to go out and do acquisitions at any cost," because, frankly, we don't have to and that would probably be dilutive to the company if we went on and made lousy deals.

So, we look at deals if we can -- if it's a good strategic fit for us, if we believe that there is a good cultural fit, then we certainly have more than enough dry powder to go out and execute really any deal that would potentially exist in our industry".