Herbalife and the Sales tactics scandal

Herbalife Ltd - BidnessEtc

Herbalife International is a US based company which deals in the development, manufacturing and marketing of health and skin care products. The company is traded on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the ticker ‘HLF’ and the HLF stock price is currently at $54. The company has market capitalization of over $5.5 billion. The company has been very successful since its inception with sales rocketing over $4 billion in the previous year. The company has a diverse distribution network with distributors in over 91 countries. Herbalife has a multi-level marketing strategy in which the company’s distributors can earn additional commissions from the distributors under them. The company has recently been facing allegations by the public that the company is using illegal practices for its marketing strategy. The supporters of the Multi-Level Marketing strategy are in the favor of the company while the others which are not in the favor of this strategy are usually the short sellers and to some extent their strategy has worked because HLF stock has lost over $10 since the court battles on the issue started. Herbalife’s major stakeholder LCAHN has declared the company a very good investment in the long term and said that these issue are not of much importance since the allegations are not very authentic and the court will be in their favor.

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Root Beer by Dr Pepper Snapple Group

Dr Pepper Snapple Gr - BidnessEtc

Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (DPS) is an U.S based soft drink manufacturing company. Formerly it was known by “Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages”. The company is based in Texas.

The company has a wide range of well-known brands such as Diet Rite, Hires, Crush Orange, Snapple, Motts, Cactus Cooler, Mistic and root beer which was launched on 20^th June 1919. Root beer has become one of the most famous brands of USA along with drive-ins and car culture. The drink was launched by Roy Allen, a young entrepreneur. The beginning of root beer was when Roy set a road side stand for spectators to quench the spectator’s thirst who were present to honor the returning veterans from World War 1. The drink was thick and creamy which became a huge success in a short span of time giving Roy an opportunity to start a stand with his new partner Frank Wright. Soon he started 5 new stands. Soon he opened 2 more stand in Houston where for the first time he set a name A&W, the brand name of his root beer. He didn’t stop here, but planned forward to start restaurant franchise sales program. This is how the journey of Dr Pepper Snapple Group Incorporation began with root beer.    

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Costco’s expansion plans and investor outlook

Costco Wholesale Corporation - BidnessEtc

Costco is a United States based corporation, which is in retailing business and is ranked 4^th largest retailer in the world. Costco is headquartered in Washington, United States and is traded on NASDAQ with the symbol ‘COST’. Costco stock price is currently at $112 and the company has market capitalization of over $51 billion. COST Stock has given good returns to the investors in the previous years with over 40% return in the last year. Costco is a membership only retailer club. Costco offers wide range of products to its members ranging from home and office products top jewelry and toys. The company’s aim is to sell products at low costs to its members. Apart from having over 650 stores in 8 countries Costco also have an online presence and also offer online buying facility. Currently Costco’s annual memberships are over 71 million which represents that the company has a very strong customer base but most of its memberships are in United States and the international presence of the company is not so much. However the company’s management has announced that the 60% of the new store openings in the coming years would be in international markets which will prove to be very diversifying and promising for the Costco’s investors. 

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Coca-Cola (KO)

COCA-COLA - BidnessEtc

Coca-Cola Company, with the stock market ticker (KO) is the world’s largest producer of non-alcoholic beverages. It produces more than 1.9 billion serving everyday worldwide. It is a favorite stock among dividend investors given the fact that it’s a top dividend yielding stock with current stock dividend yield of 2.93% and dividend growth rate of 8% last year, is higher than that of a close competitor, PepsiCo.

Coca-Cola is a top consumer discretionary stock and is considered one of the best companies to invest in given solid fundamentals like stable cash flows ($8 billion last year) and growing operating margins. The stock market trends for the stock have responded the strong position of the company.  The stock gains have been over 80% in the recent 5 years and due to which it is one of the good stocks to invest in.

The Dividend Aristocrat, has been posting positive stock market news. It recently bought its bottlers in a $12.3 billion deal to gain better control of its business operations. Stock investing is truly an art to analyze relevant information pertaining to different companies to bring it down to the high yield investments. Coca-Cola is surely in the top 10 stocks list for amateur traders and experienced traders alike.

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What does investor sees in Proctor and Gamble

PROCTER & GAMBLE CO - BidnessEtc

Procter and Gamble is a fortune 500 company, which deals in the consumer packaged products. Procter and Gamble operates in over 180 countries and is one of the biggest companies operating in personal care, cleaning agents and pet foods products. Procter and gamble apart from being the company to provide quality products to the consumer is also ranked one of the top employers in the world with numerous awards given for the most desirable employer in personal care products. 

The company trades on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with ticker symbol of ‘PG’ and currently has the stock price of $80 and the market capitalization of over $210 billion. The company has given great returns to the investors in the past. For the financial year 2014 the company’s sales growth slump a bit due to the stronger dollar but the company has still beat the market expectation in the sales growth. The company has a fairly diversifiable portfolio of the products with highest market share in the personal care products in many countries. This accounts for the diversification for the investors and also good growth in the past and company keeps on capitalizing on the new projects like joint venture in Iberia which provided good return for the company’s investment. 

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