I find Pfizer (PFE) a truly wonderful business. The reason for this is because the company is able to present its investors year after year with surprisingly high, yet stable, margins and free cash flow.
The reason why I like Pfizer is because the company can pass a long list of my personal strict screening criteria. I quite often divide this screening process into two simple steps. In the first step I evaluate various quantitative metrics. This is simply because the best companies out there with strong and wide moats usually have the best financial metrics. If a company can charge 10% more than its competitors, it clearly needs to do something better than the rest. These type of companies are usually the ones who are able to survive even the most difficult business environments and still continue rewarding their shareholders. In the second step, I continue applying a few qualitative factors on the companies which have passed my first step.
