All posts by Peter Jefferson

About Peter Jefferson

Peter Jefferson is a full-time researcher for www.businessdistrict.com, a task he took on in 2011 when the site was launched. He brings to the position a wealth of practical experience in the field of fiscal policy, having consulted with various government bodies on revenue collection, expenditure and economic growth. Contact Peter at peter[at]businessdistrict.com

Tate & Lyles Bring Sweet Profits

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Tate & Lyle (PLC) is a 90 year old English company which began as a sugar refinery, now specializes in manufacturing ingredients for the beverage, food, personal care, pharmaceutical, animal feed and industrial markets. The company markets many of the ingredients that we read about on food ingredient labels such as corn gluten, fructose, dextrose, food stabilizer systems (one of my personal favorites) etc. The company markets on the five continents.

The stock is sold on the London Stock Exchange and is on the FTSE 100. One of the interesting things is that it while many American stocks took a downturn in August and remain down. Tate & Lyle took a down turn and started rising immediately. In June 2011, the stock hit a three year high of 660 GBP. In August it dropped to 540 and now it is back up to 640. In fact, over the last three years, the stock had risen from 250 GBP to today’s price of 640. That is over 250 percent in three years!

Some of the management professionals to watch for are : Oliver Rigaud, the President of the Specialty Foods Ingredients; Karl Gibber, the company secretary and General Counsel; and Robert Luijten, The Executive VP of Human Resources.

As with all stocks, I always recommend that the purchaser perform due diligence and check the stock thoroughly. Here, since the firm is a foreign company on a foreign stock exchange, checking the stock and the trading policies of the London Exchange is especially important.

If It Works Don’t Fix It

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Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC) is a great example of a business with similar product lines. In fact it is so good that it has three product lines with similar marketing strategys. They sell health care products to practitioners with private offices or clinics, particularly, dentists, general medical practitioners and, believe it or not, animal health clinics. They have health care technology segments in which they develop the technology and also healthcare distribution networks to market their products in 21 countries.

What I like about this is that they that the marketing system is the same for all of the product lines. They all sell health equipment and they all sell to private practitioners with small offices or clinics. In other words, the sales forces operate on similar principles, so what they learn in one product line can be applied to the other product lines. They also make money on the exchange rates which shows financial savvy.

The company’s stock has also been rising steadily from 2009 until the end of July 2011, when it reached $75 per share. It then dropped down to $60 which appears to be because of the world economy. This might be a good stock to invest in but I personally would wait until I see that it is going back up. As with all stocks this requires a thorough examination before buying to determine if it is the stock’s situation at the time of purchase. In addition, this is a fortune 500 company, which as I said is multinational. The multinational aspect gives it an added aspect of stability in my opinion.

Some mangers to look out for at this company are Michael Zack, the President of the International Group, Ms. Lonnie Shoff, the President of the Healthcare Specialties Group, Michael Racioppi, a Senior VP and chief Merchandising Officer and Steven Paladino, the CFO.

Bristol-Myers Squibb is Healthy

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Bristol-Myers Squibb Logo

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) stock has been going up over the last 7 months and it has hit the top of its 52 week range of $24.97 to $31.93. The company is performing well and has topped the S&P 500 as well as the health care index.

The company is developing new medicines to cure hepatitis and cancer among other things. These will offset the revenue flow from medicines whose patents are about to expire. Bristol-Myers Squibb apparently is doing well at R&D because it has got many potential drugs in its pipelines, some already approved by the FDA.

BMY is also very profitable and has a P/E of 15.20 which is slightly on the high side. It also has a 4.2 % dividend yield which is good. During the last 5 years, BMY has also had a 15% average annual earnings growth.

Some major managers are: Joseph C. Caldarella the Senior VP and Controller; Dr. Elliott Sigal the Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D; Sanda Leung, the General Counsel; and Frances Cuss, the Senior VP of R&D.

You might want to analyze this stock as potential portfolio acquisition.

McDonald’s Is Yummier Than Yum Brands!

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Yum Brands, Inc runs fast food restaurants such as Kentucky Fried chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and A&W All-American Food Restaurants Brand. They have about 37,000 restaurants are in 110 countries. The company is growing especially in China and developing countries.

Analysts were concerned that with the greater unemployment and economic constraints would cause people to abandon the fast food chains. This is to some extent true; however it is so much a part of modern life to travel and to grab meals along the way that it continues even during hard times.

Over the last year the stock has gone up from $46 to $54 per share. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $52.12. It’s dividend yield is 2.2 percent or about $1.20. The return on equity ratio is 79.19%. It has a high debt to equity ratio of 174.19. Revenue growth in the last quarter was 9.4%.

Its chief competitor is McDonald’s Corp whose stock has been steadily rising for the last five years. It has risen from $40 to $90 and is still going strong. It’s a real powerhouse and from an investment perspective its is better than Yum.

Ross Stores Offer Amazing Clothing Prices And Amazing Stock Performance.

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Ross Stores, Inc. operates apparel and home accessories retail stores which offer 20-60 percent discounts off other stores’ ordinary prices. Ross stores have two chains: the first is Ross Dress for Less and the second is dds Discounts. Ross operates 1055 stores in 27 states and in Guam. Ross Dress for less caters to middle income families and dds Discounts caters more to moderate income families.

Ross buys benefits from the over supplies in the ordinary retail channels and buys quality clothing, footwear and accessories at discount prices. The recessionary economy could lead to an oversupply of inventory in regular stores and a larger quantity of merchandise and better discounts for Ross.

Ross’s stock price has risen over the last two years from $40 to $80 per share. The stock has risen relatively steadily without tremendous ups and downs along the way. Of course, part of the reason that this company succeeding so well is due to the country’s economic problems. More people need better bargains on regular staples. Ross stores supplies the goods.

One of the management staff is Lisa Panattoni, Executive VP of Merchandising which is one of the most important functions of the company. Mark LeHocky is the General Counsel and the Corporate Secretary. In addition to legal counsel for Ross, he was previously the General Counsel for Dreyer’s Ice Cream, Inc. Prior to that he was a principle in the law partnership of Freeland Cooper LeHocky & Hamburg.