The UK-based soft-drinks producer Nichols recently held its first-ever capital markets day‚ showing off a three-part business plan thats looking quite solid. The company (which makes popular drinks like Vimto) splits its operations into UK drinks‚ international sales and out-of-home services; implementing new SAP software to boost its day-to-day work
Their goals look pretty straight-forward: grab more UK market share (about 1/2 of total sales now)‚ push harder in Middle East and Africa markets (1/4 of revenue)‚ and trim costs in their hospitality division. The numbers theyʼre aiming for are interesting: 30% more sales a 2.5% bigger profit margin and £45m in pre-tax income - which means the stock trades at just 14x future earnings; thats quite cheap for a no-debt company with 20% margins
The FTSE 100 company DCC is making some big changes: after its shares dropped more than 20% (while FTSE 100 went up 10%)‚ theyʼre now planning to break-up the business and focus on energy. The companys value dropped from 22x to 15x earnings‚ but with this new two-year break-up plan its worth keeping an eye on
Engineering firm Ricardo isnt working out as planned - even with their 40.2p per-share dividends (including the Nov-22 payment). They want to sell their defense business and move into environmental consulting; which sounds good but brings too many what-ifs about selling prices future purchases and how theyll put it all together. Its time to step away from this one