Investment Q&A

Q: Regarding the recent issue of shares and debentures, which closed July 16 - what does this do for the balance sheet… or for any other aspects of PBH you feel is relevant?

Thanks!

From the press release:
The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering and the Concurrent Private Placement to reduce existing indebtedness under one of its revolving credit facilities (the "Credit Facility"), thereby increasing the amount available to be drawn under such Credit Facility, as required, to fund future potential strategic acquisitions and capital projects that may arise.

Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. Looking to top up my Consumer sector holdings. Currently have PBH, NWC and PLC, which are more on the Staples side of things. I have a "full" weighting on each, relative to my assessment of their risk. Considering getting back into the Discretionary side...maybe rebuy LNF or MG. Could you run a screen of Canadian Discretionary stocks that pay > 3% dividend and overlay that with your ranking from best to worst...maybe the top 5 for me to consider.

Thanks for your help...Steve

Q: SIS, PHB, PHO have all been pushed below the 1% weighting mark in my portfolio. This is due partly to starting the positions back when when my portfolio was smaller, the stocks not performing great and because other holdings (KXS!!!) have done extremely well. What 2 positions would you sell here to add to the remaining position? I'm leaning towards keeping PHO because of the balance sheet but wanted your thoughts.

Thanks

Q: Hi Peter and team,

Looking for some recommendations. $30,000 to invest in a TFSA. Low-risk. 3-5 companies with dividends. The timeframe is three years. What would you recommend? Would you be okay with CSU, NPI, and PBH?

Thank you very much,

Q: Pbh : hello 5i Research team, Could you describe the significant differences (I presume) between pbh « premium food distribution » and Colabor whole food distribution operations? Why are the faith of both companies so different? Thank you for your collaboration, Eric

Q: What is your opinion of buying into the recently announced offering of convertible debentures versus just buying the common shares? Thanks for the great service.

Q: What will the likely effect of PBH's recently announced share offering be on the share price?

Q: I'm looking to average down on PBH. I'm down roughly 30% so would want to take myself back up to a full position. Any concerns with taking that step now?

Thanks
Robert

Q: 1.5 billion in debt compared to 200 million in cash seems very risky. Are there food companies with healthier balance sheets that can make cheap acquisitions going into a bloody quarter 2, or are you not too worried about PHB's debt?

Cheers

Q: Appreciate u 12 tips today. Too many for me to buy now.Has lots of the big 6 can.banks & Qst (similar to Xbc).Please give me best 5 to buy.Txs for u usual great services & views. FYI China moves to impose HK security law causing drops in Asian markets esp HK( down 4.84% now) as well as US futures(Dow now down 139 after earlier up some 108)

Q: Hi there, it seems at present there are supply shortages for beef due to COVID in meat packing plants. Will this materially affect PBH? Did they make any mention to this in their recent Q as it could affect their supply chain?

Q: Good day! If as and when this pandemic passes, most couples will want to go out and enjoy themselves at some restaurants (ex. steak houses,fast food, etc). Can you please give me two choices of some big names and pls provide their three top revenue producing divisions that will deliver good growth over next 3-5 yrs.. too.. thanks again..

Q: Hi, I am looking to invest a new half position in SLF or add to a half position in PBH. Would you favour one over the other today? I don’t mind risk, I favour growth, but am slightly light weight in financials.

Also, I currently hold VUN in my RRSP. After reading the ETF fund update, would you recommend switching to ZSP or ZUQ? I recognize the withholding tax advantage of the other two over VUN. Is that alone worth the switch?

Thank you.

Q: any particular reason for the large spike today?

Q: comments please on the quarter. Thx

Q: Retired and income seeking investor. These three stocks seem to have been underperforming. Would you buy them for relatively low volatility and reasonably good yields? How safe are their dividends?

Q: I plan on buying PBH - waiting til after Q1 report May 11th as I think news could be bad? I was looking at SYSCO in the USA as a buy as well? Are they similar companies in terms of the products they supply? No point buying both - I'd have to use CDN $$ as well fro the US position. What do you think about PBH in light of meat supply and maybe increased costs?

Q: Hi Peter: When I sit back and take a look at the big picture and review how my portfolio performed during COVID-19 (so far), I try to see what lessons I can learn, then turn to how to apply those lessons to make my portfolio stronger.

I am a retired, dividend-income investor. I am a huge believer in asset allocation and have designed a portfolio, in my opinion, to be reasonably well diversified, although heavy to Canada. It WAS roughly 70% equities (including 32% foreign content) and 30% fixed income (roughly 15% insured annuities, 15% Fisgard Capital...both averaging in the 5-6% pre-tax range and minor cash). My equities are mostly blue chip, dividend payers, as you can see above. The 3 mutual funds are a very minor part of my portfolio, especially Eric's Energy Fund (<2%). I also receive a company pension and CPP-OAS which, when included, drops my equities to roughly 32%.

I use various metrics to monitor my portfolio, such as P/E, P/BV, P/CF, P/S, Beta, ROE, Div growth, Payout%, technical indicators like 200 mda. I am normally a buy-and-hold investor who trims/adds around a core position.

Periodically I measure how "at risk" my portfolio is relative to the overall market. I do this by prorating my portfolio using Beta. Based on equities only, I averaged 0.68 and for my entire portfolio I averaged 0.44. So, one would think that if the overall market (TSX) was to drop 30%, then I would have thought my portfolio would drop 44% to 68% of that, being in the range of 13% (overall) to 20% (equities only).

In actual fact, my entire portfolio dropped 27% from peak to trough vs the expected 13%...over double! I understand that EVERYTHING was sold off...almost no exceptions. So what do we learn from this and what changes should we consider? Do we accept that "sxxt happens" once in a while...you can't predict every event, accept it and move on? Should we consider increasing the cash component as a buffer? Or...is there something else to be learned here?

Thanks for you help...much appreciated...Steve

Q: PBH appears to have been doing ok despite the COVID-19 lockdown, which means, their products are likely not being purchased and consumed. When does the sales slowdown negatively hit them, and what do you think happens to the stock price in the short term, and do you think they have the financials to weather the storm and go back to higher ground after the lockdowns end?

Q: PBH: a lot of debt. and a high P.R. and hurt Wuhan virus effect. Always thought this company was too expensive based EPS and high P.E.; but, it kept going up. I was thinking of adding a half position until they report in mid May - results should be bad, I would think? With their already high P.R. is the dividend sustainable?