The Zulu Principle

Jacket text for The Zulu Principle

A brand new edition of the classic bestseller

Jim Slater makes available to the investor - whether the owner of only a few shares or an experienced investment manager with a large portfolio - the secrets of his success. Central to his strategy is The Zulu Principle, the benefits of homing in on a relatively narrow area.

Deftly blending anecdote and analysis, Jim Slater gives valuable selective criteria for buying dynamic growth shares, turnarounds, cyclicals, shells and leading shares. He also covers many other vitally relevant aspects of investment such as creative accounting, portfolio management, overseas markets and the investor's relationship with his or her broker.

From The Zulu Principle you will learn exactly when to buy shares and, even more important, when to sell - in essence, how to to make 'extraordinary profits from ordinary shares'.

Chapter headings for The Zulu Principle

Acknowledgements
Preface to the 1992 edition
Preface 2008, Jim Slater

1. Winning
2. Small dynamic growth shares
3. Earnings, growth rates and the PEG factor
4. Creative accounting
5. Liquidity, cash flow and borrowings
6. Something new
7. Competitive advantage
8. Momentum and relative strength
9. Other criteria
10. Weighting the criteria
11. Cyclicals and turnarounds
12. Shells
13. Asset situations and value investing
14. Leading shares
15. Overseas markets
16. Your broker and you
17. Portfolio management
18. The Market
19. Ten guidelines
20. Glossary

Index

About Jim Slater

Jim Slater trained as an accountant. He first became interested in investment in the sixties, while a director at a British Leyland subsidiary. After publicising his methods via a column in The Sunday Telegraph, he launched the investment conglomerate Slater Walker, which he chaired until 1973. The company was known for its aggressive acquisitions in every area from banking to property. It collapsed in the 1973-4 recession, leaving Slater bankrupt to the tune of about £4m in today's money. He fought his way back to prosperity through private property deals and writing for small investors. In 1990, he published his main work, The Zulu Principle. This popularised the use of a financial ratio devised in America, known as the PEG, or Price:Earnings Growth Ratio. He has since devised a monthly publication called Company REFS (Really Essential Financial Statistics), which helps investors to apply his system by listing PEGs and other key ratios and information on all UK companies. Now living in Surrey, but far from retired, he is still very active in educating investors through his books and lectures. He is also a very active investor and a substantial shareholder in a number of public companies.

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Reviews for The Zulu Principle

Praise for the original edition

"Jim Slater was, for a time, the single most powerful influence on the business scene. Twenty years on, he has refined, honed and distilled his investment thoughts into a book that is vintage Slater: innovative, imaginative, original and fresh with sophisticated investment methods made to seem simple and glaringly obvious - if only you'd thought of them before."
- Ivan Fallon, Sunday Times

"When I was making my run from being a small business man to something larger, Jim Slater dominated the City. Somehow or other he was involved in virtually every major deal. He rode the waves with unprecedented skill, imagination and charisma. No wonder this book is an essential building block for understanding investment."
- Sir James Goldsmith

"Jim Slater's book is very readable, alive and fascinating. For anyone seriously interested in investment, it is essential reading. I recommend it strongly."
- Lord Hanson