A small setback

Article Excerpt

TUPPERWARE BRANDS CORP. $39 (New York symbol TUP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 63.1 million; Market cap: $2.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 2.6%; WSSF Rating: Above Average) makes food and beverage containers. It gets 56% of its sales from overseas markets, compared to just 25% for Newell. However, expanding internationally can lead to unforeseen problems. For example, the stock fell 8% on July 19, 2010, even though Tupperware reported stronger quarterly earnings. That’s because of accounting errors at its Russian subsidiary. The company will upgrade the subsidiary’s accounting systems to prevent future problems. The errors cut Tupperware’s earnings by $0.14 in the latest quarter. If you exclude all unusual items, earnings per share would have risen 8.1%, to $0.93 from $0.86. Revenue rose 7.7%, to $565.1 million from $524.7 million, mainly on strong emerging-market demand. Despite this setback, Tupperware is still up 50% since we first recommended it at $26 in the May 2007 Wall Street Stock Forecaster. The stock…