Start with the basics: what ‘quality’ really means in stocks and why it matters.

The term “quality” is used frequently in investing. Everyone claims to buy “quality stocks,” and every other fund calls itself “quality.” But when you dig slightly deeper and ask,

“What do you really mean by quality?” The answers are often vague.

People point to famous brand names, or high stock prices, or whatever did well in the last bull market. For us, a quality company is not one that merely looks impressive.

This is a company that consistently converts its business profits into real cash, earns favourable returns on money invested and treats minority shareholders fairly.

Start with the basics.

That is not a slogan; it is a set of very specific behaviours. Start with the basics.

A quality business is one that can consistently grow its sales and profits over the long term without relying on constant doses of new debt or equity. I

If you look at its track record over the last 10-15 years, you should see revenues and earnings climbing at a healthy pace, not declining precipitously.

Of course, there will be bad years and good years, but the direction over time should clearly be upward. Take a company like Berger Paints.

Between 2015 and 2025, its revenue is expected to grow from about Rs 4,000 crore to about Rs 12,000 crore.

while profits are expected to grow from about Rs 250 crore to about Rs 1,200 crore. During that period, i

Its return on capital employed remained roughly in the range of 25-30 per cent. Meanwhile, its debt as a share of the balance sheet remained low or even declined.

The result is what quality looks like in numbers: the business keeps growing, and every rupee invested keeps getting attractive returns.

Then there is cash flow. It is surprisingly easy for a company to show an accounting profit while the actual cash is stuck in receivables.

Whether it’s in the form of inventory or questionable “other assets”, a company can easily present an accounting profit. A quality company converts a large portion of its profits into cash from operations over time.

If you see a pattern where reported profits are, say, a total of Rs 3,000 crore over five years, but cumulative operating cash flow is only Rs 1,500 crore,

You have to ask why. In the best businesses, those two numbers don’t differ from each other.

The balance sheet provides its own narrative. Quality companies do not habitually prop themselves up with dangerous levels of leverage.

This doesn’t mean that all debt is bad; in some industries, a fair amount is normal. However, if the need for borrowing to maintain operations escalates every few years,

Or if interest costs eat up an increasing share of profits, that’s a sign of weakness, not quality. And then there’s behaviour:

which often matters even more than the numbers. How do promoters treat minority shareholders? Do they regularly pledge their shares to borrow money?

Do they keep issuing new shares and diluting existing investors?

Do they engage in related-party transactions that benefit their personal interests more than those of the company? Are the auditors stable and independent?

Or do you see resignations, qualifications, and frequent changes? Many of the worst shocks in the Indian markets were visible right on a simple price chart until the very end of the story.

Early warning signs were generally in governance and capital allocation. At Value Research Stock Advisor, we place a lot of weight on these soft factors. Occasionally,

We leave a company, even if the financials look attractive, simply because we don’t like what we see in the way management operates.

We’ve learnt that it’s better to be broadly correct about a slightly less exciting company than to be disastrously wrong about a glamorous name with poor governance.

It is also important to remember that a strong brand or dominant market share does not automatically equate to quality if it comes with disorganised capital allocation.

A company that earns high returns on capital but keeps reinvesting in projects with low returns will actually reduce its quality over time. Conversely,

A management team that is disciplined about where it invests and willing to return excess cash to shareholders when it cannot deploy excess cash wisely tends to increase quality.

None of this requires you to be a forensic accountant. You don’t need to create complex models.

Whatever stock you’re considering, you just have to ask a few consistent questions: Does this business make good money?

Does it turn that money into cash, does it reinvest wisely, and does it treat me, the minority shareholder, with respect?

If the answer to all of these is “yes”, then you are probably looking at a quality company. In our work at VRSA,

We try to pass the cataloguing universe through exactly this type of lens before anything reaches the formal recommendation stage.

This is why you’ll often see a bias in our views towards companies with clean balance sheets, good histories and proper governance track records.

even if they aren’t the hottest names of the moment. We would rather miss out on a brilliant but delicate story than compromise on quality.

Over the long term, despite all the noise, quality starts to reflect in the share price. In the Berger Paints example,

An investor who would have made around Rs 124 in 2015 to around Rs 500 in 2025 would have made around a 15 per cent annual gain, even with considerable fluctuations in between.

This return was not achieved by chance. It came from a business that kept doing boring, difficult things right.

The next time you hear the word “quality,” don’t think of it as a label placed on stock. Think of it as a habitual pattern in a company’s life:

steady growth, strong returns on capital, real cash generation, sensible leverage, and honest, competent management.

If you tilt your portfolio toward such companies and avoid those that merely look impressive,

You give yourself a better chance of sleeping well while your wealth grows slowly in the background.

(Ashish Menon is a chartered accountant and senior equity analyst at Value Research’s stock advisory service.) (Disclaimer:

Recommendations and opinions on the stock market, other asset classes, and personal finance management tips given by experts are their own.

These opinions do not represent the views of The Times of India.