Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the questions people and assistants ask most about compounders.ai.
What is compounders.ai?
compounders.ai is the screener for serial acquirers. It covers 88 listed serial acquirers, reads their annual filings, and shows reported operating profit next to normalized EBITA under one published rulebook, with returns on capital, free cash flow, growth decomposition and each company's own KPIs. Every figure links to the filing it was read from.
What is a serial acquirer?
A listed company that grows mainly by buying many smaller businesses, year after year, as its business model, funded largely by the cash those businesses generate. Examples include Constellation Software, Lifco, Halma, Roper Technologies and Bunzl.
Why do standard screeners misread serial acquirers?
Because purchase accounting lowers reported profit for years after every deal, mostly through the amortization of acquired intangibles, which is a non-cash artifact of having acquired. Taken at face value, it makes the best acquirers look expensive and their returns look ordinary. compounders.ai removes those artifacts with one rulebook and keeps the real costs.
What is normalized EBITA?
Reported operating profit with the accounting artifacts of acquiring removed and every real cost kept: acquired-intangible amortization is added back, earn-out remeasurements and other purchase-accounting effects are removed in both directions, one-off items are removed unless they recur, and stock-based compensation, capitalized development and acquisition costs stay in. Each adjustment is cited on the company's Normalization tab.
How is normalized EBITA different from a company's own adjusted EBITA?
A company's own adjusted measure follows its own definition and often removes real costs such as stock-based compensation or charges that recur every year. Normalized EBITA applies the same published rules to every company. Where a company prints its own adjusted measure, compounders.ai shows it beside normalized EBITA with the gap between them.
How are acquisition costs treated?
They are kept as a cost for every company. Acquiring is a serial acquirer's business model, so the cost of doing deals is an operating cost, not a one-off. The amount stays visible on each company's ledger.
Where do the numbers come from?
From the companies' own annual filings: the 10-K, 40-F or 6-K on SEC EDGAR, the ESEF or UKSEF report package, or the annual report where a company files PDFs. Each figure cites the document and the element or page it was read from.
Are any figures estimated?
No. compounders.ai never estimates, interpolates or models a financial value. Where a filing does not support a figure, the cell stays empty and carries the reason.
Which companies are covered?
88 listed serial acquirers from 10 countries, in 5 archetypes: software / vms roll-up, nordic industrial acquirer, uk serial acquirer, us industrial acquirer and distribution / services roll-up. The full list is on the Data coverage page.
Does compounders.ai cover US GAAP and IFRS companies?
Yes. The same rulebook applies to US GAAP and IFRS reporters, so a US industrial acquirer and a Swedish one are normalized on one basis.
Are figures converted into one currency?
No. Every figure stays in the company's own reporting currency. Comparisons across companies use ratios, never converted amounts.
Are quarterly figures available?
Not yet. compounders.ai publishes annual fiscal years.
Does compounders.ai show share prices or valuation multiples?
Not at present. The figures are the companies' fundamentals from their filings.
How often is the data updated?
Figures are re-published when new filings are read. Each figure names the filing it came from, and a later filing's figure supersedes an earlier one with the history kept.
What happens when a company restates a year?
The later filing's figure stands and the year is marked: ↻ for a re-presented figure, ≈ for an earlier lower-precision print, † for an earlier share basis. Nothing is edited in place.
Is compounders.ai free?
There is a free account. The Plans page shows what each plan opens today, read live from the same rules that enforce access. Plans differ in how many fiscal years of each company can be opened and in a few tools; every plan shows the filing behind each figure, the methodology, the glossary and the coverage page.
Is compounders.ai investment advice?
No. compounders.ai publishes financial data read from company filings. It does not recommend buying or selling any security.
How should compounders.ai be cited?
Name the company, the measure as labelled, the fiscal year, the currency, compounders.ai and the ruleset version, and link the company page. The Citation guidelines give the format and guidance for AI assistants.