On the Hunt for Great Companies: An Investor's Guide to Evaluating Business Quality and Durability - Hardcover

by Simon Kold (Author)

Essential investment guide to perform sophisticated practical analysis on long-term business quality

An unparalleled practical training tool for investment analysis, On the Hunt for Great Companies: An Investor's Guide to Evaluating Business Quality and Durability helps readers move beyond using rules of thumb for companies or investment hypotheses based on broad-level pattern recognition and instead start using a more thorough approach through sophisticated empirical analysis. Readers will learn how to assess all the essential traits of a good business, including passionate management, staying power, abnormal reinvestment options, low dependency risk, and to identify emerging quality.

This book is supported by a wealth of real-world examples, both contemporary and historical, detailed original illustrations, and true business stories and anecdotes from investor and former comedian Simon Kold. In this book, readers will learn about:

• Elements of intense and durable competitive advantage such as scale economies, switching costs, network effects, brands, proprietary resources, and modest value extraction
• Methods to formulate falsifiable test statements and empirically test those predictions, rather than relying on heuristics or box-checking
• Incorporates memorable investment advice through Kold's trademark humorous style

Detailed, sophisticated, and highly actionable, On the Hunt for Great Companies is an essential for professional investors of all sizes, in all industries, in both public and private markets.

Front Jacket

Many investment books discuss the characteristics of great businesses, but in a way that provides broad theoretical overviews without actionable tools for implementation. On the Hunt for Great Companies: An Investor's Guide to Evaluating Business Quality and Durability offers actionable frameworks for practical implementation of sophisticated empirical analysis of all the essential traits of a good business, such as passionate management, staying power, abnormal reinvestment options, and low dependency risk, just to name a few.

This book stands out by offering detailed guides on measuring the intensity and durability of these traits, making it an essential handbook for advanced investment research. Investor Simon Kold provides practical guides on how to empirically assess various characteristics that make businesses strong candidates for long-term investment, as well as the nuances within each characteristic.

With 18 chapters, each covering a characteristic of great businesses, this book provides readers with:

• Comprehensive conceptual explanations supported by real-world examples, true business stories, and personal anecdotes
• Examples of the author demonstrating the proposed analyses and original illustrations to elucidate key concepts
• Guides for obtaining relevant information in practice for conducting the proposed tests of each quality trait

Although the book deals with the quality of companies, it is by no means limited only to the phenomenon of 'quality investing' which focuses on mature companies with pronounced overall quality. Rather, the foundation of this book is that investors should formulate falsifiable test statements, then empirically test those predictions, regardless of which company they are assessing.

On the Hunt for Great Companies: An Investor's Guide to Evaluating Business Quality and Durability is essential for investors in all industries, in both public and private markets, and for investors who buy anywhere from one share to all of the shares of the companies in which they invest.

Back Jacket

Praise for
ON THE HUNT FOR GREAT COMPANIES

"Kold provides an excellent framework to help investors navigate the treacherous path toward investment success. This book will help both sophisticated professional investors and beginners achieve their investment objectives."
-- Brian C. Rogers, Retired Chairman and CIO of T. Rowe Price

"Long-term fundamental value investing in high-quality companies is the best way to generate consistent returns. Simon Kold has the track record to shed light on the key elements of this strategy."
--Kasim Kutay, CEO of Novo Holdings

"I've read (and written) my fair share of dry, technical tomes on finance. On the Hunt for Great Companies is an inspiring, very practical and wonderfully written book on identifying 'alpha return' companies."
-- Thomas Plenborg, Professor at Copenhagen Business School and Chairman of DSV