European leaders come with a discount

Article Excerpt

Europe is home to many high-quality companies that are among the global leaders in their respective fields of operation. Still, as a group, these companies have underperformed their U.S. peers by a wide margin over the past two decades—lacklustre European economic growth and bureaucratic burdens have contributed to the mediocre performance. However, the macro conditions may be changing—European interest rates are moving lower and governments are waking up to the need to make their business environment attractive for companies to invest. As well, a big boost planned for defence spending will spur growth. But the key long-term attraction remains high-quality companies with solid growth prospects trading at reasonable to low valuations. High-quality European companies The major holdings of the European-focused ETFs discussed on pages 51 and 53 are, without exception, high-quality, global leaders in their respective industries. Not only do these companies have robust track records of profitable growth, but they also have solid balance sheets and ample cash flow to see them through…