Saturday, February 21, 2015

Best Defensive Companies To Watch For 2015

Best Defensive Companies To Watch For 2015: COCA COLA HELLENIC BOTTLING CO (CCH)

Coca-Cola HBC AG operates as a bottler of products of The Coca-Cola Company in Switzerland and internationally. It offers a range of ready-to-drink non-alcoholic beverages in the sparkling, juice, water, sport, energy, tea, and coffee categories. The company has operations in 28 countries serving approximately 581 million people. Coca-Cola HBC AG is based in Zug, Switzerland. As of April 22, 2013, Coca-Cola HBC AG operates as a subsidiary of Kar-Tess Holding S.A.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Ben Levisohn]

    Berkshire’s ownership position in Coca-Cola may set the stage for something similar to Duracell—With Berkshire’s 400 million Coca-Cola shares currently worth $17.8 billion, and an estimated value for CCR (Coca-Cola’s North American bottling assets) of $12.8 billion (based on 8x estimated EBITDA of $1.6 billion), this would not be a large enough transaction for Berkshire to completely transfer its Coca-Cola stake. Of course, we do not think Coca-Cola needs to capitalize the business with $5 billion in cash, as Procter & Gamble did for Duracell to “plug the gap” between the valuation of the business and Berkshire’s stake, but that may be a possibility in this instance as well. However—call us crazy—we think Berkshire could also take a look at CCEAG, Coca-Cola’s German bottling business. We valued this at $2.75 billion three years ago6, based on $3.8b of revenue, a 10.4% EBITDA margin and a 7.0x multiple. We think there is upward bias to a current valuation given likely cost rationalization that has occurred in the intervening years. If we wanted to get even more creative, we could even envision Berkshire taking a look more broadly at European bottlers like Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) and Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), which have similar industry dy! namics to the U.S. bottlers. We note that some type of swap transaction, à la Duracell, could save Berkshire Hathaway nearly $5 billion in income taxes.

  • source from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/best-defensive-companies-to-watch-for-2015.html

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