Los ratios usados para realizar el corte, los cuales no tienen por qué ser exactamente los que usa Buffet, han sido los siguientes:

1. Return on Equity (RoE) mínimo de 15%
2. Ratio de deuda a largo plazo sobre Capital (Long-term Debt/Equity) menor a 50%
3. Margen bruto y Beneficio neto incrementado durante los dos últimos años.
4. Capitalización Bursátil superior a los 250 MUSD.

La lista, que incluye 24 empresas junto a una pequeña reseña sacada de MorningStar (sin traducir )  respecto al ámbito de su actividad, es la siguiente (después del salto):

• Almost Family (NASDAQ:AFAM): Opera centros de servicios de salud. Almost Family and its subsidiaries provide home health-care and adult day-care services. It operates adult-care centers in the eastern and Midwestern United States that offer home health-care services, including nursing and home infusion. Almost Family’s centers administer medicine, prepare meals, offer counseling, and organize recreational and educational programs.
• Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN): Empresa de Biotecnología. Amgen’s blockbuster anemia drugs have been under pressure for the last couple of years, and this leading biotech has responded by restructuring operations and squeezing value from other products. With stabilizing sales, a leaner business, and a promising new drug candidate up for approval, we think Amgen has emerged from the storm with its competitive advantages intact.
• American Public Education (NASDAQ:APEI):Empresa que presta servicios educación a miembros del ejército. American Public Education is a provider of exclusively online postsecondary education directed at military and public service communities. It operates through two universities, American Military University and American Public University, which share both a common faculty and curriculum. Its students are primarily members of the United States military on active duty, in the reserves, in the National Guard or veterans.
• Atrion (NASDAQ:ATRI): Fabricante y distribuidor productos médicos. Atrion designs, manufactures, and distributes medical products. The company’s products are used in ophthalmic, diagnostic, and cardiovascular procedures and are sold primarily to major healthcare companies. These products include soft contact lens storage and disinfection systems, surgical procedure kits, devices used to obtain blood samples to measure blood sugar, and fluid delivery products. Atrion also has a line of non-medical products that are used in marine and aviation safety.
• AZZ (NYSE:AZZ): Fabricante componentes para la industria eléctrica y galvanizado. AZZ operates in two product segments: Electrical & Industrial Products, and Galvanizing Services. The company’s Electrical & Industrial Products segment manufactures products used by utilities to safely generate and distribute electricity, as well as industrial lighting and tubular products for the oil and gas industry. AZZ’s galvanizing services segment coats steel products in zinc to protect them from corrosion.
• Buckle (NYSE:BKE): Cadena tiendas de ropa. Buckle is a retailer of medium and higher-priced casual apparel for men and women. The company operates more than 340 retail stores in more than 40 states throughout the central United States under the names Buckle and The Buckle. The company markets casual apparel, including denims, other casual bottoms, tops, sportswear, outerwear, accessories, shoes, and children’s clothes to customers 12-24 years old. Most stores are located in regional, high-traffic shopping malls.
• Bucyrus International (NASDAQ:BUCY): Fabricantes equipos para industria minera. Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International designs and manufactures mining equipment used in extracting coal, copper, oil sands, and other minerals. The company also sells aftermarket parts and services to support its installed base of machinery. Bucyrus expanded its operations to include underground equipment when it acquired German mining machinery manufacturer DBT in 2007.
• Bally Technologies (NYSE:BYI): Fabricante de máquinas recreativas. Bally Technologies designs, manufactures, distributes, and operates gaming machines and computerized monitoring systems for casinos. Bally’s primary technologies include gaming devices for land-based, riverboat, and Native American casinos, as well as video lottery and hardware and software products that provide casinos with marketing, data management, accounting, and other tools. The company also owns and operates a riverboat casino in Vicksburg, Miss.
• Church & Dwight (NYSE:CHD): Principal productor mundial  de bicarbonato de sosa. Church & Dwight is the world’s leading producer of baking soda. More than a handful of its products are sold under the Arm & Hammer brand, including its baking soda, toothpaste, cat litter, and carpet cleaner lines. The firm’s eight core brands–Arm & Hammer, Xtra, Trojan, OxiClean, First Response, SpinBrush, Nair, and Orajel–account for more than 80% of its annual sales and profits. Church & Dwight generates about 80% of its revenues from the United States.
• Emcor Group (NYSE:EME): Empresa de servicios de construcción y mantenimiento. EMCOR provides electrical and mechanical construction and maintenance services in the United States and Canada. The firm’s construction segment designs and installs electrical, HVAC, communications, water, and other types of electrical and mechanical systems for commercial, industrial, and municipal customers. EMCOR also provides mobile and on-site facility maintenance services.
• Ensign Group (NASDAQ:ENSG): Operador residencias de la tercera edad. The Ensign Group is a long-term care company. Ensign operates primarily nursing homes, but also offers assisted-living facilities and assisted-living wings in nursing centers. The company operates facilities in California, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Utah and Idaho. Ensign has a decentralized corporate structure with five regional groups that are largely autonomous and possess an independent management structure.
• Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ): Empresa de productos de cuidado personal y farma. Johnson & Johnson stands alone as a leader across the major health-care industries. The company maintains a diverse revenue base, a robust research pipeline, and exceptional cash-flow generation that together create a wide economic moat. Patent losses on antipsychotic Risperdal and neuroscience drug Topamax will weigh on near-term performance. However, we remain confident that the company’s breadth can overcome these issues.
• Jos. A Bank Clothiers (NASDAQ:JOSB): Cadena tiendas ropa para caballero. Jos A. Bank Clothiers is a retailer and cataloger of tailored and casual clothing and accessories targeted towards the male career professional. The company sells its products exclusively under the Jos A. Bank label through more than 320 company-operated stores and 10 franchise stores, as well as through its mail-order catalog and the Internet. Jos A. Bank Clothiers’ stores are located throughout the United States. Catalog sales represent approximately 11% of the company’s total sales.
• Kensey Nash (NASDAQ:KNSY): Material médico absorbible. Kensey Nash manufactures a proprietary line of absorbable medical devices for the sealing of arterial punctures created during diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular procedures, such as angiography, angioplasty, and the placement of stents. The company’s product for performing this procedure is the 8-10 French (8-10F) size Angio-Seal Device. The Angio-Seal is sold in the United States and internationally. The company also manufactures collagen-based burn treatments, wound dressings, and dental surgery aids.
• Lincoln Educational (NASDAQ:LINC): Educación profesional. Lincoln Educational Services is a for-profit, postsecondary education firm focused on five areas: automotive technology, health sciences, skilled trades, business and information technology, and hospitality services. Lincoln serves more than 28,000 students through 43 campuses in 17 states. All of Lincoln’s campuses are either nationally or regionally accredited and offer high school graduates and working adults degree and diploma programs.
• National Presto (NYSE:NPK): Fabricante productos  y utensilios para cocinas. National Presto Industries, together with its subsidiaries, sells small kitchen appliances, absorbent products, and housewares. Notable products include pressure cookers, FryDaddy deep fryers, SaladShooter food slicers, and the Pizzazz pizza maker. The firm also makes indoor grills, electric knives, coffeemakers, popcorn poppers, can openers, griddles, and electric frying pans. Presto markets its products directly to retailers and through distributors throughout the United States.
• Petmed Express (NASDAQ:PETS): Cadena de farmacias veterinarias. PetMed Express is a nationwide pet pharmacy that delivers prescription and non-prescription pet medications for dogs, cats, and horses directly to the consumer. The company also sells pet accessories, pet food, health, and nutritional supplements. PetMed’s products are marketed primarily through its website and over the telephone.
• Powell Industries (NASDAQ:POWL): Diseña y fabrica equipos de generación eléctrica y gestión de redes.  Powell Industries designs and manufactures electrical power management systems designed to monitor and control the flow of electrical energy and to provide protection to motors and other electrically powered equipment. These products and systems are principally used by refineries, petrochemical plants, utilities, paper mills, offshore platforms, commuter railways, vehicular-transportation facilities and various industrial, commercial, and government facilities.
• Ross Stores (NASDAQ:ROST): Cadena de tiendas bajo coste productos para el hogar. Ross Stores is the nation’s second-largest off-price retailer of brand-name apparel and home accessories. The company operates about 950 Ross Dress for Less stores and 50-plus dd’s Discounts stores in the United States. Ross Dress for Less offers merchandise at prices that are 20%-60% below the regular prices of most department and specialty stores. Dd’s Discounts is a similar concept with lower-tier brands and prices that are 20% lower compared with those at Ross Dress for Less.
• Stepan (NYSE:SCL): Compañía química. Stepan manufactures specialty and intermediate chemicals. The company’s products can be broken down into three groups: surfactants, polymers, and specialty products. Surfactants are a key ingredient in cleaning compounds such as shampoos and toothpastes. Polymers are used in construction, aerospace, automotive, consumer, and industrial products. Specialty products are used in consumer applications such as natural flavors for the beverage industry.
• TJX Cos. (NYSE:TJX): Venta saldos artículos de marca. TJX Companies is the nation’s largest off-price retailer of brand-name apparel and home fashions. TJX offers family apparel through its T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, A.J. Wright, Winners, and T.K. Maxx chains, and home fashions through its HomeGoods and HomeSense stores. TJX operates 2,600-plus stores in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ireland.
• Neutral Tandem (NASDAQ:TNDM):Servicios de conectividad redes telecomunicaciones.  Neutral Tandem provides tandem interconnection services to wireless, wireline, cable, and broadband telephone companies in the United States. The company’s tandem switches are used by the carriers to exchange traffic between their networks without establishing direct switch-to-switch connections that involve fees and other charges.
• Varian Medical Systems (NYSE:VAR): Fabrica sistemas de radioterapia. Varian Medical Systems manufactures and sells technology systems for treating cancer through radiation therapy. The company also designs and sells equipment for X-ray imaging. The firm offers its oncology systems primarily to hospitals and cancer clinics that treat patients through intensity-modulated radiation therapy and image-guided radiation therapy. The company’s X-ray products are used in a number of applications, including computed tomography scanning and mammography.
• WMS Industries (NYSE:WMS): Fabrica máquinas tragaperras y terminales de lotería. WMS Industries designs, manufactures, and distributes slot machines and video lottery terminals for customers in legalized gaming jurisdictions worldwide. Products consist primarily of video gaming machines, mechanical reel gaming machines, and video lottery terminals. Gaming machines are installed in all major regulated U.S. gaming jurisdictions. WMS generates revenue primarily via product sales and gaming operations.

Es evidente que esta lista no quiere decir que nadie se tenga que lanzar a la adquisición de estas empresas, pero sí que entre ellas se pueden buscar posibles buenas opciones de compra. Para cada uno queda la investigación del detalle de ellas.

A priori puede que, por desconocidas, muchas de estas empresas no digan demasiado al lector, pero sí me gustaría indicar que mientras buscaba a que se dedican estas compañías (reconozco mi total ignorancia respecto de muchas de ellas) he visto mucho PER menor que doce, con lo cual no parece además que a priori se encuentren a un precio exagerado.

Llama, quizá, la atención no hallar entre ellas ninguna megaempresa de las más conocidas, a excepción de Johnson & Johnson, aunque sí podemos ver la ya archiconocida  Jos A. Bank Clothiers.

Fuente Original Barron’s vía Serenity Markets. Por cierto en la lista de Credit Suisse también están algunas de las 200 mejores Small Caps que selecciona la revista Forbes.

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