Quality Investing

Quality. We all make judgments about it every day. Yet articulating a clear definition of quality in an investing context is challenging. This book addresses the challenge, and distills years of practical investing experience into a definitive account of this under-explored investment philosophy.

Finance theory has it that abnormal outcomes do not persist, that exceptional performance will soon enough become average performance. Quality investing involves seeking companies with the right attributes to overcome these forces of mean reversion and, crucially, owning these outstanding companies for the long term. This book pinpoints and explains the characteristics that increase the probability of a company prospering over time – as well as those that hinder such chances. Throughout, a series of fascinating real-life case studies illustrate the traits that signify quality, as well as some that flatter to deceive.

The authors' firm, AKO Capital, has a strong track record of finding and investing in quality companies – helping it deliver a compound annual growth rate more than double that of the market since inception. Quality Investing sheds light on the investment philosophy, processes and tough lessons that have contributed to this consistent outperformance.

Lawrence Cunningham's two dozen books include The Essays of Warren Buffett, which Cunningham self-published into an international best-seller that he has arranged for translation into a dozen languages. An influential thought leader in both value investing and corporate governance, Cunningham's other notable books include Quality Investing (long time best seller with AKO Capital), The AIG Story (with Hank Greenberg) and Margin of Trust (which Warren Buffett singled out for special mention in his 2020 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders). Cunningham advises companies, boards and shareholders, currently as the founder of Quality Shareholders Group and special counsel at Mayer Brown LLP. He has served on numerous corporate boards, of both private and public companies, including Constellation Software Inc., where is currently vice chairman, and Kelly Partners Group.

Torkell Tveitevoll Eide is a Portfolio Manager at AKO Capital. He rejoined AKO in 2013 from SKAGEN Funds in Norway where he spent four years as a Portfolio Manager on SKAGEN's $9 billion global equity fund. Prior to that Eide had spent three years at AKO Capital as an investment analyst, and before AKO he was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in its Corporate Finance practice. Eide has a first-class degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Patrick Hargreaves is a Portfolio Manager at AKO Capital. Before joining AKO in 2011, he spent eight years at Goldman Sachs where he ran the European Small & MidCap Research team before becoming deputy head of the Pan-European research department. Prior roles include stints at Cazenove and PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Hargreaves has a degree in English Literature from Oxford University.