Unilever NV (UN)

They have done some restructuring. The issue right now is more in the emerging markets, and how are they impacted by the slowdown in those markets. Over 50% of their sales come from these markets. Feels there are better consumer discretionary stocks that he can be involved in.

Compared to Reckitt Benckiser (RB-LSE), it doesn’t have nearly as many high growth product categories, and is kind of overweight in a lot of slow growth categories. Difficult to see where growth is to come by, that he sees better opportunities elsewhere.

Has the largest emerging market exposure of consumer staples. The market doesn’t like that right now, but that is obviously a mistake as the emerging markets are growing much faster than what we have in developed economies. The dividend grows periodically. Balance sheet is fine. Yield of 3.12%.

The book for this is effectively 50% emerging markets and 50% developed economies. The key driver in the last few years has been the emerging markets. What has offset that have been weaker currencies. Although the penetration, market share and economics have continued to improve, the relatively little profit coming back has been less. He is a firm believer that emerging markets are going to continue to grow. It will be lumpy growth.

A great story and not an expensive stock. Trading at about 17X earnings. Has a 4.2% dividend yield. What they has done, that a lot of other companies have not done, is to restructure their assets. They’ve looked at their brands and their global businesses and made some very structural changes that are very important.