Skip to content
Our business evaluation criteria:
1. We screen candidate companies using such criteria as:
- Whether the business can meet corporate targets for profitability and return on investment.
- Whether the new business will require substantial infusions of capital to replace fixed assets, fund expansion, and provide working capital.
- Whether the business is in an industry with significant growth potential.
- Whether the business is big enough to contribute significantly to the parent firm’s bottom line.
- The potential for union difficulties or adverse government regulations concerning product safety or the environment.
- Industry vulnerability to a recession, inflation, high-interest rates, or shifts in government policy.
2. We seek three types of companies that make particularly attractive acquisition targets:
- Companies whose assets are “undervalued.”
- Companies that are financially distressed.
- Companies that have bright growth prospects but are short on investment capital.
3. We view unrelated diversification as an opportunity from several financial angles:
- Business risk is scattered over a variety of industries, making the company less dependent on any specific business.
- Capital resources can be invested in whatever industries offer the best profit prospects.
- Cash from businesses with lower profit prospects can be diverted to acquiring and expanding businesses with higher growth and profit potentials.
- Corporate financial resources are thus employed to maximum advantage.
- Company profitability is somewhat more stable because hard times in one industry may be partially offset by a good time in another.
- To the extent that we are astute at spotting bargain-priced companies with big upside profit potential, our wealth can be enhanced.