Chinese Nepstar Chain Drugstore, $4.02, symbol NPD on New York (Shares outstanding: 105.5 million; Market cap: $424.1 million; www.nepstar.cn), is the largest drugstore chain in China, by number of stores. Chinese Nepstar has 2,577 stores in 74 Chinese cities. It supplies these outlets through 14 distribution centres.
Chinese Nepstar stores sell a variety of products apart from drugs, including nutritional and herbal supplements, personal-care items, family-care products and products including food that you’d normally find in a convenience store.
The company aims to increase its profits by centralizing its purchasing, offering low prices and customer-loyalty programs, and selling its own private-label products.
However, Chinese Nepstar faces a number of challenges: It gets a rising proportion of its sales from convenience items, which are less profitable than drugs. As well, the Chinese government is imposing price controls on prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It’s also raising the minimum wage, which is pushing up Chinese Nepstar’s labour costs.
The shares have a high 6.4% yield, but…
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Changes to this Policy
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