Word: analysts
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Nestle's complexity, though, comes at a price. While the company's long-term growth has outstripped that of many rivals, its margins are lower; "subpar profitability" is how Morgan Stanley analyst Sylvain Massot describes it. Its stock trades at about 15 times estimated 2002 earnings, less than that of Kraft Foods, Kellogg or Hershey Foods, which all trade at price-earnings multiples of about 20. And Nestle ranks far behind Unilever, which trades at 35. Brabeck isn't fazed. "If I had run the company based on the opinion of financial analysts, it would already have been bankrupt...
...company invited 150 analysts to a seminar in Miami last October that was the highlight of its investor-relations campaign. But on the evening before the seminar started, Brabeck let slip over drinks that Nestle had an option to acquire the French cosmetics company L'Oreal in 2004. When the markets opened the next morning, Nestle stock tumbled on fears about what such an acquisition would do to its already growing debt. Brabeck kicked off the seminar with an angry lecture, complaining that his remarks had been misinterpreted and reading aloud extracts from the option agreement with L'Oreal...
Novartis quietly bought a 20% voting stake in Roche last year, startling the firm's managers and prompting speculation about an impending acquisition. But Vasella is biding his time now that he has, in the words of WestLB Panmure analyst Michael King, "parked the tanks on Roche's lawn." Vasella says when he heard that Swiss financier Martin Ebner would be selling his $2.8 billion stake in Roche, he realized the continuing consolidation of the industry might leave a major competitor in his backyard if he didn't act fast. "You don't want to wait to dance until...
...partly in preparation for the launch of a potential blockbuster drug called Zelnorm, aimed at irritable bowel syndrome, for which there are few treatments. But the FDA, expressing concern about Zelnorm's side effects, rejected the application, asking for more data. In the short term, says Morgan Stanley analyst Duncan Moore, Novartis' prospects for robust growth depend heavily on the FDA's reversing its ruling on Zelnorm and approving an anti-inflammatory drug named Prexige, which Novartis plans to submit to the agency toward the end of this year...
...wins, the last major barricade to reform falls, and the road ahead of him is cleared," explains political analyst Dominique Reynié. "If he fails or compromises the measure away, the unions come out strengthened, and he has to face the anger of his own conservative backers who will accuse him of selling...