Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat: Can I have your opinion of CCL Industries please. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

A: CCL Industries Inc., $264.39, symbol CCL.B on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 35.1 million; Market cap: $9.2 billion; www.cclind.com), makes packaging products for the food, health care, automotive and personal-care industries. Major customers include Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. The company has four main divisions: Label (59% of total revenue) makes pressure-sensitive labels for plastic bottles and other forms of packaging. Avery (20%) makes labels, binders, dividers, sheet protectors and writing instruments. Checkpoint Systems (16%) makes radio frequency identification (RFIDs) tags. Those products help retailers prevent theft and manage their inventories. Containers (5%) makes aluminum aerosol cans, beverage bottles and flexible plastic tubes. The U.S. supplies 51% of the company’s revenue, followed by Europe (27%), Asia (9%), Mexico, Brazil and Argentina (7%) and Canada (6%). The company has a long history of expanding through acquisitions. In July 2013, it paid $486.7 million U.S. for the office and consumer products division of Avery Dennison Corp., symbol AVY on New York. New acquisitions such as Avery helped CCL’s revenue…