Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle. Every week, his comments on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. Each week, we offer you a highlight from these Q&A sessions.
Q: Pat: What is your opinion of Unilever going forward? Thank you.
A: Unilever plc (ADR) (symbol UL on New York; www.unilever.com) is one of the world’s largest makers of consumer goods. Asia and Africa supply 43% of its sales, followed by the Americas (33%) and Europe (24%). The company gets 59% of its sales from emerging markets.
Unilever operates through four divisions:
Personal Care (37% of sales) makes skin and hair care products, deodorants and oral care goods. Top brands include Dove and Lux (soap), Sunsilk (shampoo), Axe (deodorant), Pond’s (skin cream), Vaseline (petroleum jelly) and Close Up (toothpaste).
Foods (25%) makes a variety of packaged products, including Becel margarine, Knorr soups and Hellmann’s mayonnaise.
Refreshments (18%) makes Lipton teas and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
Home Care (20%) makes laundry and dishwashing detergents and other household cleaning products. Major brands include Sunlight, Comfort and Sif.
ADR stock: Unilever buys two major soap brands with $225 million per year in U.S. sales
In the three months ended March 31, 2015, Unilever’s sales rose 12.3%, to 12.8 billion euros from 11.4 billion euros a year earlier (1 euro = $1.34 Canadian). The gain mainly resulted from the U.S. dollar’s rise against the euro, which boosted the contribution from Unilever’s U.S. sales. The company’s underlying revenue, which excludes currency movements and businesses it bought or sold during the quarter, rose 2.8%.
Underlying sales gained 3.3% in Asia and Africa and 4.9% in the Americas. However, European sales declined 0.4%. That’s because the continent’s sluggish economy forced Unilever to cut its prices by 1.9%, though that did help increase its sales volumes by 1.6%. (Note: Unilever didn’t announce its first-quarter earnings, as it only reports earnings twice a year.)
The company operates in competitive markets and must spend heavily on advertising to maintain its market share. In 2014, Unilever spent 14.8% of its sales on advertising and promotions, unchanged from 2013.
Unilever continues to benefit from an ongoing restructuring, which includes cutting jobs and selling less profitable businesses. It expects these moves to save it at least 500 million euros in 2015.
These savings are helping the company fund acquisitions. For example, it recently agreed to buy the rights to the Camay (globally) and Zest (globally, excluding North America and the Caribbean) soap brands from Procter & Gamble, symbol PG on New York and a recommendation of our advisory on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.
Unilever didn’t say how much it would pay, but these products generate $225 million U.S. of annual sales. It expects to close the deal later this year.
The ADRs trade at 19.4 times the $2.25 a share the company will probably earn this year. They yield 2.9%.
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