When you are looking at businesses as investments, there is one simple thing that you should be looking for: real profits.

Where do you find these?

Well you can look through prospectuses (which are in some respects business reviews) of the companies that you are interested in, or in the case of purchasing a business, the financial statements will do.

Basically, you are looking to see if the company is profitable by itself - not due to special circumstances.  If the company has established profit systems in place, and are profitable, they should be worth some further analysis.  Other analysis that you might do would depend on the business and you should consult your team of advisors (most likely in this case an accountant) to show you what you should be looking for.

Just remember this simple business investing advice:  look for profitable companies.