How to find the best companies - and make sure their shares are worth buying

After a decade distorted by emergency rates and quantitative easing, investors need to rethink their strategy for a world where they can no longer simply rely on cheap money boosting returns.

That is the view of David Miller, investment director at Quilter Cheviot, who, in addition to using funds to invest for his clients, is also a committed stock-picker and believes buying individual company shares is still a route to success. 

‘It’s a question of working out who’s got a good business model, who makes a profit, who’s borrowed too much money and has a balance sheet that will evaporate at the first sign of trouble,’ he says.

‘Those are judgments that are now having to be made after that longish period when much of a muchness seemed to be ok.’

David joins Simon Lambert, of This is Money, and Richard Hunter, of Interactive Investor, on the Investing Show to explain how he finds good companies.

He discusses what investors should look out for and highlights some of the opportunities he sees at the moment in the UK stock market, particularly those in the FTSE 250 going after the big guns’ business. 

One company that he highlights as having profited from a successful business model, despite being in a tough sector, is retailer B&M.

Britain’s companies have seen a slight resurgence in interest from investors recently, having been out-of-favour for some time, but David says that he believes it’s important to dig deeper than countries or sectors and instead identify the companies that have carved out a successful niche and are capitalising on that.