Topic: Growth Stocks

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL INC. $40 – Nasdaq symbol MDLZ

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL INC. $40 (Nasdaq symbol MDLZ; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 1.6 billion; Market cap: $64.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.mondelezinternational.com) makes cookies and biscuits (Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Ritz), chocolate bars (Cadbury, Toblerone) and gum and candy (Trident, Chiclets and Halls cough drops).

In May 2014, the company agreed to merge its packaged coffee business with European coffee maker D.E. Master Blenders. Under the deal, Mondelez will contribute its coffee brands, including Jacobs, Gevalia and Tassimo, to a new firm called Jacobs Douwe Egberts. It will get about $4.5 billion in cash and 49% of the new company in return.

Mondelez aims to close the deal by the end of 2015. It will use the cash to buy back shares and pay down its $12.8-billion long-term debt, or 20% of its market cap.

The company is also restructuring its snack food businesses, including cutting jobs and closing plants. This should cut $1.5 billion from its yearly costs by 2018.

Excluding unusual items, Mondelez earned $687 million in the three months ended March 31, 2015, up 2.7% from $669 million a year earlier. The company spent $1.5 billion on share buybacks in the latest quarter. As a result, pershare earnings gained 5.1%, to $0.41 from $0.39.

Sales fell 10.2%, to $7.8 billion from $8.6 billion. Mondelez gets 80% of its sales from foreign markets. If you exclude currency exchange rates and businesses the company sold, sales gained 3.8%.

The company will probably earn $1.72 a share in 2015, and the stock trades at a high 23.3 times that forecast. The $0.60 dividend yields 1.5%.

Mondelez is a hold.

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