Opinions
Mark Grammer
Nestle
NSRGY-OTC
COMMENT
Dec 16, 2016
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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Trading near a 10-year low. They own 20% of L'Oreal. Trades at 14x PE. Coffee is 25% of their business. They have 30 brands with $1 billion of sales. The new CEO will prune the underperforming assets. Strong growth ahead. The stock is on sale, because growth slowed due to carrying too brands.
(Analysts’ price target is $106.88)Consumer staples are outperforming in the last few days, and that speaks to the advantage of having a balanced portfolio. Companies like KHC, UL, KVUE, and Nestle. It's not that they won't be affected (their costs would go up), but they're far less cyclical than other businesses. Earnings will be much more stable. Earnings could fall 10%, but not 50%. Dividends will be sustained.
Companies like Unilever and Nestle are huge in NA, but huge globally as well.
This has been one of his long-standing positions. Had lightened up earlier in the year, because it had had a pretty decent run. It has now sold off dramatically with a lot of the consumer staples as an interest play. There has also been some weakness in their earnings growth rate, particularly their top line growth rate. He is positive on them, because they have a new, very well respected CEO coming in. For the 1st time in about 100 years, it is an outsider, and will come in and make some changes, which he thinks will be positive.