'Great' Companies That Are, Literally, Good to Go

I had someone point this out to me, so I thought I'd make a quick post of it. If you take the eleven companies from Jim Collins' bestselling Good to Great book a few years back, knock off Philip Morris and Gillette (the former doesn't have the trading history, and the latter is part of P&G), you're left with nine "great" companies. That list, however, includes Fannie Mae (FNM), which is now ours as taxpayers, and Circuit City (CC), which is looking increasingly like it will not make it through the next twelve months.

Good to gone, perhaps? Okay, okay, that's too harsh, but you still have to look askance at any such recent-ish list that includes Fannie Mae.

Comments

[fatcat:]

Take out the 2 bads and he had a decent slate of picks..then again,if a frog had wings...

2008 Nov 08 10:42 AM

[Jim Lawrence:]

I have to admit; your list got me excited. It is just short of amazing that ABT, WFC, and KR have only backed off 2 to 3% in this market. However, all of them are great buys. Fannie Mae could be the best buy on this list. After all, where can they go. Bankrupt? I strongly doubt that. If they did bankrupt it would be very interesting to see how many banks would go with them. Starting with WFC. After all the banks are the big holders of FNM stock, and I still have to remind myself; buying a home in America is still my greatest investment.

2008 Nov 08 11:38 AM

[Madbad:]

The commentary is a bit disingenuous. The book was based on past results, and never portended to be an indicator of future performance. The real question is, did those companies move away from what had made them successful? The biggest commonaltiy between the Good to Great companies was leadership. As those leaders change, it was very likely that the fortunes of some of those companies would as well.

2008 Nov 08 08:31 PM

[richard_nog...:]

The book good to great was published in 2001. That was before the 2002 recession, and way before the current one. I'm sure he was spot on at the time. Of course hindsight is 20/20 so after looking back some could say there were hidden problems.

2008 Nov 08 10:00 PM

[notsosmart:]

things change too quickly in this world today.yesterdays charts,graphs,picks etc. dont matter anymore.lying ceo's,selfserving boards will bring down a co. quickly.there is no accountability or transparency & in all this mess the wall st crowd will make out ok for the most part with the sheeples money.its fleecing time brought to you by the conservative"mission accomplished" who is now making out his pardon list for his cronies.

2008 Nov 09 10:33 AM

[birder:]

It sort of goes to show you that once good can become not so good very fast.

2008 Nov 09 10:54 AM

[captainccs:]

A pointless comment.

2008 Nov 09 06:57 PM

[BlueOkie:]

I agree this is pointless

2008 Nov 09 08:22 PM

[jewcer2k5:]

What are the companies returns from 2001/2002 when the book was published??? He never said they wouldn't take a hit he just said they were the market leaders in their industry because they did something that made them better than just a normal good company. You can't just compare them to the S&P, you have to compare them to their individual industry. How do they compare then??? and since 2001/2002 not in just a 10 month snap shot. Obviously the 2 crap outs will still be crap outs but I'm pretty sure (w/o doing the research) the others outperformed their competitors.

2008 Nov 10 08:33 AM

[User 265729:]

Did ANY OF THEM get some of the $2 TRILLION from the Fed? They are not telling who is getting this money so how can you trust ANY company or investment?

www.bloomberg.com/apps...

It's really pathetic!

Then we have the businesses that we know about who are lining up to live off the American taxpayer.

I think I'm gonna be sick!

2008 Nov 10 10:31 PM