14 Comments
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Martin Wiesmann's avatar

Thanks for this great article! I enjoyed reading it a lot.

After downloading your list of 72 companies I was wondering, though, if the data is really reliable: At first glance I noticed that the country of some companies is wrong: The Singapore Exchange Ltd is obviously not located in Germany (and this is just one of many mistakes). Did your stock screener provide that, or did that happen during preparation of the data?

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Kevin's avatar

I did not look at the 72 companies in detail yet. I just copied the data from the screener. I'll take a look at it in the coming week to correct errors manually if needed. Thanks for the feedback!

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Dipesh Mehta's avatar

Thanks for a detailed article, Kevin. I have just finished reading the book and was pleasantly surprised to find your article. Forbes has published a list of 41 us publicly traded companies that Berkshire has invested into. Do you wonder why then your screener didn’t pick up all those? Or do you think their public holdings do not conform to this ideal way of finding the companies with durable competitive advantage ? Also want to poke your view on whether it makes more sense investing in Berkshire shares rather than using some screeners to find winners. After all, you only found a couple within the US!

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Kevin's avatar

Thanks for your insightful question. I do not think Berkshire uses a screener. I reckon, they use an A to Z approach + relying on their on network of investors to generate ideas. Some of the criteria listed are in their head, and are ideal criteria. Not every company needs to live up to all of them. I hold a couple of Berkshire shares but the problem they have is their sheer size. It becomes increasingly harder to keep compounding at high rates. You could buy a holding like Berkshire and let them do the stock picking. But that is a very personal view. I enjoy the stock picking process 😉

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Michael Bergmann's avatar

Great list, Kevin! Merry Xmas. I hope to analyse some companies on your list in the comming days

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Kevin's avatar

Merry Christmas. Let me know what you come up with!

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Michael Bergmann's avatar

Will do!

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gere67's avatar

Wow Kevin great artickle! well done!

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Kevin's avatar

Hey thanks. Appreciate it!

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Damien Parker's avatar

Kevin for the sake of adding color to the subject, it’s impossible to not see the share price - it’s front & center on all financial docs - but you can adopt the attitude of ‘I am going to test whether it is the correct price’. One of my favourite tests is Enterprise Value/EBIT <8 because this is the methodology one would use to assess buying the whole business because from this relationship you can deduct your personal interest and taxation payable to generate your profitability.

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Kevin's avatar

Thanks for the insights! I love using EV/EBIT. I had an idea in the past to use a data provider and generate reports in Excel while masking the price. But once you start reading the annual reports, you'll get exposed to the price while downloading them. So yes, virtually impossible these days.

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Joel Sherwood's avatar

Amazingly helpful and insightful post. Bravo.

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Oliver | MMMT Wealth's avatar

Love this Kevin. Nice change up 👏

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Kevin's avatar

Thanks! I appreciate it!

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