GENERAL MILLS INC. $61

GENERAL MILLS INC. $61 (New York symbol GIS, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 594.4 million; Market cap: $36.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.generalmills.com) is one of the world’s largest food makers. Its top brands include Cheerios, Wheaties and Trix (cereals), Pillsbury and Betty Crocker (baking products), Haagen-Dazs (ice cream), Old El Paso (tacos), Progresso (soups and salads) and Yoplait (yogurt). The company recently sold its North American Green Giant frozen vegetable business for $788 million. It will continue to use the Green Giant brand outside of North America. Partly due to that deal, General Mills’ overall sales in its fiscal 2016 third quarter, which ended February 28, 2016, fell 8.0%, to $4.00 billion from $4.35 billion a year earlier. Excluding exchange rates, sales declined just 4.0%. The company earned $361.7 million, or $0.59 a share in the quarter. That’s up 5.4% from $343.2 million, or $0.56, a year earlier. The higher profit is due to a restructuring plan, including job cuts and a drop in advertising spending. General Mills recently raised its dividend by 4.5%; the new annual rate of $1.84 a share yields 3.0%. This is the seventh time the company has raised its dividend since 2010. The stock trades at 21.3 times the $2.87 a share that General Mills will likely earn for all of fiscal 2016. That’s a high multiple in light of increased competition in the yogurt market and pricing pressure by large retailers such as Wal-Mart. General Mills is a hold.

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