In this retrospective piece, Comgest’s co-founders, Wedig von Gaudecker and Jean-François Canton, recount the company’s early days—from its unconventional beginnings to the values that shaped its long-term Quality Growth approach. A story of partnership, perseverance and entrepreneurial spirit.

A company's journey to becoming a "marathon runner" is often driven by its unique strengths rather than its sector or region. Comgest's analysts identify the distinguishing factors of marathon runners through extensive research. In this paper, Wolfgang Fickus, Product Specialist for Europe Equities, explains how companies with traits like strong free cash generation, smart capital allocation, diversification, global reach, crisis resilience, and a unique corporate culture can achieve marathon runner status and sustain growth for generations.

Although ageing is a fact of life for people, some quality companies have spanned decades, if not centuries, and remain in their prime — or even stronger. Comgest's Wolfgang Fickus highlights Lindy's Law, which explains why these "marathon runners" get better with age, and why they're the bedrock for the compounding benefit captured in our quality growth portfolios.

Growth stocks naturally tend to command premium valuations to reflect their attractive earnings profile. While growth lasts, all is well. Any unexpected halt, however, can be painful as investor expectations are reset. Using Tesco as an example, this White Paper attempts to demonstrate how long-term investors can spot a future stall in order to sell out in time.

As ‘quality-growth’ investors we apply a long-term-oriented investment approach, which relies on companies’ fundamental value creation, i.e., earnings development, as the determinant share-price driver.