"Positive free cash flow. Olstein looks at a company's financials,
specifically the 10-Qs and 10-K, and makes a beeline for the statement
of cash flows. We're not talking about the stated cash flow from
operations, investing activities or financings. We're talking about cash
flow from operations minus capital expenditures--the amount of usable
cash the company actually generates, which can be used to buy back
stock, pay dividends, make acquisitions, and grow the business."
TheStreet.com 6/25/01
" Our main defense against risk is only buying companies that either are
currently generating excess cash flow, or will in the next three years."
Financial Advisor Magazine August 2001
"To Olstein, being right means finding companies with excess cash flow
that are selling at inexpensive levels because investors are tuning them
out. "Cash flow is the oil that lubricates the corporate engine," he
observes."
The Washington Post 2/17/2002
"By
concentrating on cash, investors can learn enough about a company to
eliminate it as a possible investment. FOr example, if you want to get a
quick-and-dirty reading, look not at a firm's "income statement" but at
a more obscure tables of numbers called its "statement of cash flows".
""Everyone looks at conventional price-earnings ratios but that doesn't
tell you anything about the deviation between cash flow and reported
earnings," Mr. Olstein said."
Financial Advisor Magazine June 2006
"Olstein believes that cash--particularly free cash
flow--is king because he thinks it's a truer measure of a company's
underlying performance. He and his staff analysts look for companies
trading at a discount to free cash flow. Lack of free cash flow is one
reason why he doesn't like (a sector) ..."
CFA Institute 12/4/2007
BloombergBusinessweek 8/17/2009
"....buy quality companies that have "wide moats" (in other words, "hard to
compete with out of the box"), have been generating free cash flow
throughout the financial crisis, and have a great balance sheet to
withstand any issues."
New York Times 1/9/2010
As the market goes higher, it becomes more important to measure the
quality of corporate earnings,
he said. You have to look behind the
numbers.
Adjustments that investors need to make now, in Mr.
Olstein's view, are a result of disparities between a company's reported
earnings and its excess cash flow. Earnings are what investors focus
on, but because these figures include noncash items, based on management
estimates, the bottom line may not tell the whole story.
Cash
flow, on the other hand, is actual money that a company generates and
that its managers can use to invest in the business or pay out to
shareholders.
SOME of the widest gulfs between earnings
and cash flows, Mr. Olstein said, are showing up the ways companies
account for capital expenditures."
New York Times 9/11/2010
Cash is king,
he says. He spends a lot of time crunching numbers in a
search for strong cash flow, and his winnowing process goes something
like this:
First, he scrutinizes a company's financial reports in an effort to
determine whether they paint an accurate picture. In this work, he has
considerable expertise: he was an auditor with the old Arthur Andersen
& Company, and then, in the 1970s, was co-author of The Quality of
Earnings, a financial newsletter that, in its day, was perhaps the
foremost authority on spotting the gray areas of corporate accounting.
If you're analyzing a company,
he says, you first have to understand
what they're really earning, as opposed to what they say they're
earning.
American Association of Individual Investors October 2010
"the forensic analysis we undertake
to analyze a company's results and the quality of its
earnings for valuation purposes.
1. Using the company's cash fl ow statements, we begin by
reconciling the difference between free cash fl ow and
reported earnings under accrual accounting. (Accrual
accounting records revenues, expenses and income
when the transaction occurs, as opposed to when
the cash is actually received or spent.) The smaller
the difference between free cash fl ow and reported
earnings, the higher the quality of earnings."
Barron's 4/30/2011
"He grows more concerned when a company's reported earnings significantly exceed its cash flow,..."
Value Investor 4/30/2012
"Describe where you look first in researching
a company's financials.
RO: We begin by reconciling the difference
between free cash flow and reported
earnings under accrual accounting. The
smaller the difference, the higher the
quality of earnings. The bigger the difference,
the more work we have to do to
understand the makeup and sustainability
of free cash flow."
