Lower costs set them up for new gains

Article Excerpt

These two alcoholic-beverage makers continue to cut costs and adapt to increasingly health-conscious consumers, who drink less. That improved efficiency enhances the long-term prospects for each, but we prefer Molson Coors for new buying. DIAGEO PLC ADRs $117 (New York symbol DEO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; ADRs outstanding: 629.2 million; Market cap: $73.6 billion; Priceto-sales ratio: 5.2; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.diageo.com) is the world’s largest premium alcoholic-beverage company. Its major brands include Guinness stout, Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Captain Morgan rum. In the six months ended December 31, 2016, Diageo’s sales rose 14.5% to 6.4 billion pounds from 5.6 billion a year earlier (1 pound=$1.66 Canadian). If you exclude the brands that Diageo recently sold and the positive impact of currency exchange rates, sales rose 4.4%. Thanks partly to savings from a recent cost-cutting plan, earnings per ADR jumped 20.9%, to 2.48 pounds from 2.05. (Each American Depositary Receipt represents four common shares.) The stock has…