No. of Recommendations: 18
Nestlé is far more than just food for humans. Anyone here into cats or dogs? Nearly no way around Nestlé. Still available for the same price as 10 years ago.
Anyone here who would love to buy Costco if it falls a lot? If so I suggest to have a look at a Nestlé 25 year or longer chart: It NEVER falls - apart from the last 3 years. You can put a linear to it and it perfectly fits. Berkshire is a super volatile speculative investment compared to Nestlé.
I agree with all you say about Nestle, and I've respected them hugely and wanted to own it for a long time. But the problem is that they really have not prospered for quite a few years now. So, the investment case rests on the assumption that the rut is transient. Five years of flat revenue and rising debt and sputtering profitability, at a glance. Payout ratio around 80%, so one more modest mis-step and there's a dividend cut on the horizon, which won't be good for the stock price for some time given the sort of folks who likely own it. All of those worries could be forgiven if it were dirt cheap, but it doesn't seem to be. Not expensive, but it's cheap mainly only in comparison to its own past when the business was doing better.
Maybe there will be a market swoon at some point and it will move from "cheaper than usual" to "actually cheap", and the worries will be covered by the margin of safety.
Jim
