Wonder Stocks is dedicated to identifying truly outstanding investment opportunities, which are rare and require extensive research to uncover. Our “A Company in 500” series reflects this effort, evaluating numerous businesses to find those with exceptional potential. Most companies, while often well-run, don’t meet our high standards for transformative returns.The below provides a short summary of ten companies.A Company in 500 Words is a filter. It helps the author find exceptional investments. That means investments that we can make a case for making at least 20% per annum. There’s four types of company:Companies not worth further review. Wonder Stocks has high standards so most sit in this bucket.Stocks worth a little more work but probably aren’t interesting. These meet the minimum for more work. I.e., these are stocks that Wonder Stocks can imagine making 20% per annum.Really interesting stocks. These have a clear route to making >20% returns.Wonder stocks. These have already had work done and we argue for how it might make >20% per annum.These ten companies included an oil company in a politically explosive part of the world, a water utility, a taken over generic services business, an animal health company, a hotel company, aircraft leasing, a supplier to farms, a micro loan company operating in emerging markets, an interesting software business and a food distributor.Companies Not Worth Further Review:Gulf Keystone Petroleum is an oil company in Kurdistan. Far too risky a proposition. If things go right you can do OK, if they don’t it can zero.United Utilities is a perfectly fine company in which to generate steady returns but never wonderful returns. In theory it is a political football with various politicans, most recently Andy Burnham, talking about government control. In reality politicians talk a lot of nonsense and United Utilities will outlast them.Anexo wasn’t very interetsing and now it has been taken over.PPHE Hotel is as much a proprty play as a hotel group since they own some expensive real estate. Neither property speculation nor hotels are generally capable of generating wonderful returns unless you are incredibly fortunate with your timing.Avation is a very interesting business in a way that is not dissimilar to United Utilities insofar that it generates a fairly consistent return that is uncorrelated to equities. That being said, its potential for returns is capped at a level below what we demand of Wonder Stocks.NWF Group or North West Farmers is the name of the company, describes its customers as well as its shareholders. Dull and quite good if you like dull. Dull is not wonderful.ASA International Group is a suppolier of microfinance in parts oof the world where you don’t need to wear a coat in winter (aka emerging markets). It’s fine at what it does but seems a bit niche and not without risk. The niche nature of the business caps the upside and the uncertain risk makes it difficult to assess.Greencore Group makes things like sandwiches for places like Marks & Spencers. Nothing inherently wrong with it but very pedestrian.Stocks worth a little more workAnpario is a business that creates animl supplements that are designed to improve the health of live stock without using antibiotics. Its products are deisgned to improve gut health and the microbiome of animals to give a natural health boost. It will probably get taken over one day.Eleco is a software company that makes solutions for particularly the construction industry but also other parts of the built environment. It’s products are used in areas like risk assessment and project estimating. It’s niche but has a solid position. It is still growing and has the potential for further growth through intelligent acquisitions. In software roll ups we prefer others but Eleco might be worthy of further work in due course.Summary: Of these ten companies reviewed, eight do not meet Wonder Stocks’ rigorous criteria for further investigation, whilst two might but are a low priority. Our high standards mean few businesses will stand out, but the search for exceptional investments continues.Support My WorkWonder Stocks creates regular 500 or less word summaries of companies. These exist to create a filter to find companies that are truly exceptional. A library of all stocks covered can be found here - these are and will always be free to read. The very best ones may be covered in greater detail on our Deep Dives where we go into detail about why these companies have the potential to generate truly Wonderful returns. The first six Deep Dives are free, but accessing new investment insights requires a subscription upgrade.Click here to see summaries of the previous ten companies.Subscribe now