Unilever Live Discussion

Gamesinvestor1 31 Jan 2020

Tee'd off Doug – Hands up, cuff me. I admit to buying some back at 4302 on the 25th March. Not on the scale of my previous holding mind – more a toe in the water, hedging my bets. One never knows in these markets. Also bought IHG when it tanked 6% after the virus scare was announced – now recovered and is 6% up - bizarre in 3 days. Games

Uncle_Doug 30 Jan 2020

Tee'd off Gamesinvestor1: stock is up 1.68% – bizarre! …and on a day when all markets got hammered. Always worth keeping a chunk of ULVR in the portfolio. Never under estimate the value of top brands.

Gamesinvestor1 30 Jan 2020

Tee'd off 2% revenue growth and 2.9% in profit is someway shy of a 3-5%. Perhaps even worse, is that the sales growth fell 25% from 2% to 1.5% in the fourth quarter - sales growth falls look to be gathering pace. Is this all down to own brand? I suspect most of that growth was price led, as per last time. It was wholly price led on the tea business, where volumes actually fell. MorningstarUK – 30 Jan 20 TOP NEWS: Unilever's Profit Down A Third And Sales Growth Disappoints (Alliance News) - Consumer goods firm Unilver PLC on Thursday reported sales growth across the ... 6% jump in the divi was enough to excite the punters though, as the stock is up 1.68% – bizarre! Games

Uncle_Doug 22 Jan 2020

Comparative stats I did put a watching brief on FEET but it has not done much and seems to yo-yo all over the place. Can’t use the same Fundsmith trusted criteria for Emerging Mkts. I went for Baillie Gifford and Liontrust (used to be Neptune) for my Emerging Mkts exposure. Both doing very well. Good luck anyway - FEET might succeed.

Gamesinvestor1 22 Jan 2020

Berenberg ““BERENBERG CUTS UNILEVER TO ‘HOLD’ (BUY) - PRICE TARGET 4750 (5350) PENCE”” Oh well that looks like an upgrade then given the share price is 4411. Analcysts - don’t ya just luv em? games

Gamesinvestor1 22 Jan 2020

Comparative stats Hi Doug, Yes if you are a member you should get updates, but not sure if they send it out for the fact sheet. Best bet is to put in a rolling diary entry to look at it on the 2nd of every month and load up the web site yourself. I always look at it to see what or if he has sold anything. I held a few stocks like the Swedish Match and Smucker – I sold shortly after he did. I also bought Estee Lauder and Novo Nordisk shortly after he did and they are now up 176% and 59% respectively. Also bought Facebook, fortunately at a lower price than Fundsmith, it’s up 23.4% but sadly that was after taking profits on Apple far too early and that has outperformed Facebook. Wouldn’t buy Apple back though. You will see that last year he also sold 3M and Colgate - neither of which I owned and wasn’t really interested in them. Both good companies mind but struggling to grow revenue and or profits. I don’t have an investment in Fundsmith Equity Fund – I did invest in Smithson which has done really well, but am 11% down on FEET PLC. I think in the latter he has bought a load of Indian Companies at very high P/Es and seemingly gone against his philosophy of buy good companies, try not to overpay and do nothing – I think his top ten are suffering from a failure of the second commandment - “try not to overpay”. I’m doggedly sticking with FEET – not entirely sure why though ! Games

Uncle_Doug 21 Jan 2020

Comparative stats Thanks - I knew most of his portfolio from trading updates (except maybe 2 or 3) but wanted the % weightings. I hadn’t even bothered to look at that monthly factsheet before!!! Now I’ve seen that at the bottom of the factsheet was a whole archive of past years. Hey - do you get the monthly factsheet emailed to you. That would be useful if that can be done. Should I email them?

Gamesinvestor1 21 Jan 2020

Comparative stats Doug, you can easily deduce his entire portfolio by looking at his monthly updates which shows the top 5 gainers and 5 detractors each month. Clorox is specifically mentioned in his annual letter to shareholders. It hasn’t appeared in any of his recent reports on a monthly basis, but the last month mentioned that they opened up a new position. As I already now all the others in his list of 28 holdings. Here is the December update for example:- ““PORTFOLIO COMMENT FOR DEC 2019 We began buying a new position for the fund, the name of which will be revealed when we have accumulated our desired weighting. The top 5 contributors in the month were Intertek, Philip Morris, Estée Lauder, Johnson & Johnson and Coloplast. The top 5 detractors were Unilever, Automatic Data Processing, Paypal, Intuit and Sage.”” as of last month his top 10 are: Microsoft Philip Morris Estée Lauder Paypal Facebook Novo Nordisk Amadeus Intertek McCormick Kone I hold directly and in my own top 10 - Microsoft, Paypal, Facebook, Estee Lauder, Novo Nordisk, Amadeus, Kone. I stupidly sold Intertek too early and I consider McCormick to be overpriced. If you want to know all his holdings I can list them for you. Games

Uncle_Doug 21 Jan 2020

Comparative stats Fundsmith do not publish all their holdings, just list a top ten, but they have ULVR and RB. What’s he got to hide - let us investors see the full breakdown. Clorox seems an odd choice given your figures. I just top sliced my Fundsmith in the hope I can buy them back cheaper sometime down the road - the recent rise seemed a bit bubbly. Can never time markets I know but I can at least try. Do not agree with Terry selling Colgate and Proctor and Gamble.

Gamesinvestor1 20 Jan 2020

Comparative stats It’s interesting or not, based your viewpoint I suppose, to compare the stats on some of the consumer companies. Take Clorox for example that Terry Smith’s Fundsmith must have bought into quite recently, as it is mentioned in his latest annua report.

Uncle_Doug 16 Jan 2020

Missing targets Don’t worry about repeating yourself. My memory’s so bad I need reminding several times

Gamesinvestor1 16 Jan 2020

Missing targets Hi Doug - yes, but realised I was repeating myself. The wife accuses me of it from time to time. Nothing new other than the continued £ strengthening is likely to put continued pressure on ULVR. That and the fact they don’t see an upturn in their business for at least a year. Games

Uncle_Doug 16 Jan 2020

Missing targets @Gamesinvestor1 or was it @gamesinvestor . Did you just try and reply to me?

Gamesinvestor1 16 Jan 2020

Missing targets Doug – Here is your debt growth. This the rise in borrowings since 2014. The growth in debt is 3 times from a base in 2014 of £7.2Bn to £21.6Bn in 2018. £21,650.00 £16,462.00 £11,145.00 £9,854.00 £7,186.00 The company is to some extent buying growth.

NewBill1703 22 Dec 2019

Missing targets Uncle_Doug: I would expect both £40 and £50 to be hit over two years. I hold RB, DGE, VOD, RR… You still keen on MKS and IMB? Yes, still keen enough on both - albeit with caveats. MKS has staged a decent recovery to 215-220p from the 160p lows, and I still feel there is a lot to go for here - but could be a long haul as the right-sizing of the business continues. And I am not convinced by the Ocado deal - at best, that is a long-term story too. I have no doubt we can recover 300p here in due course, but for that they will have to get earnings back above 20p (at least) on a sustainable basis, and for that we must be patient. IMB is more clear-cut - just too cheap. But they are going through a process of wholesale management change - long overdue, I suspect - and the pace of recovery will probably depend on what a new management team choose to do with the business. And, not least, the current dividend level… All in all, it has been a tough 5 or 6 years for ‘Value’ stocks - but there are signs in recent months that this is turning, as history tells us it will (it just doesn’t tell us when). But if, as and when it does, then there is at least the potential for the likes of MKS, IMB and yes, VOD too, to do pretty well for some time. But in each case, the pace and scale of this recovery will be determined by new or at least new-ish management teams and their respective decision-making.