投资选股首选消费品牌

    他举的例子是百事公司（PepsiCo.），该股已有五年走势平平。一些投资者已在要求首席执行官下课（参见《百事掌门人卢英德的困惑》），一季度业绩又再度令人失望。但亚克曼相信这家公司。过去两年他买了2000万股，当前市值16亿美元，这家软饮料和零食巨头已成为其第一重仓股。亚克曼表示，即便是像百事这样稳定的业务也会有周期。或许百事收购俄罗斯乳业公司的价格过高，或许它在美国汽水市场的竞争中落后于可口可乐（Coca-Cola）。所有这些都让今天的百事股价便宜。当前市盈率仅为15，低于五年均值18。亚克曼相信百事的核心软饮料业务在美国市场长期将现回升。基于目前的低估值和4%的股息收益率，他预计未来十年百事将带来150%的回报率。“长期他们不会有问题，”亚克曼表示。

    53岁的杰夫•奥克谢认为，如果想投资国际品牌，现在是历史上最好的时期之一。他从俄勒冈州Lake Oswego一家108英亩的农场遥控管理着5.5亿美元（远在农场，是为了避免华尔街的人云亦云）。他的投资生涯始于20世纪80年代，1999年起开始管理自己的共同基金（总回报率年均6.6%）。随着发达经济体的去杠杆化周期延长，奥克谢表示，品牌公司的前景最好。政府缩减支出，消费者也会省着点花。债务削减有多难，从欧洲可见一斑。

    在奥克谢看来，去杠杆化效应之一就是人们会更多地在家吃饭。在历史上的去杠杆化期间（最著名的就是大萧条），消费食品股总是会大涨，因为人们会减少奢侈性支出，但又不会完全取消。“他们可能不会外出吃饭，”奥克谢表示，“但会买Ben & Jerry's（美国冰淇淋品牌——译注）作为甜品。” 他相信，自2000年以来拥有这家冰淇淋公司的联合利华以及很多其他食品品牌，都会受益于消费者新的支出习惯。再加上新兴市场不断增长的需求，应该能使公司盈利增长保持十年来年均7%的增速。该股当前动态市盈率为15倍，符合长期均值，股息收益率4%。

    奥克谢认为新兴市场的经济增长将助推全球人口大增长——预计到2025年将增加10亿人口——这股趋势也影响到了Tweedy Browne的纽约Global Value Fund的经理们。他们预计到2015年，亚洲中产消费者的数量将300年来首次追平欧洲和北美。

    His case in point: PepsiCo. (PEP) Shares have gone nowhere for five years, some investors are calling for the CEO's head (see "Indra Nooyi's Challenge"), and earnings disappointed again in the first quarter. But Yacktman believes in the company. He has bought 20 million shares, now worth $1.6 billion, over the past two years, making the soft drink and snacks giant his biggest holding. Even a steady business like Pepsi goes through cycles, he says. It probably overpaid for a Russian dairy company and has fallen behind Coca-Cola (KO) in America's soda wars. All of which makes Pepsi cheap today. It trades at a price/earnings ratio of 15, below its five-year average of 18. Yacktman assumes Pepsi's core soft drink business will bounce back in the U.S. over the long term. He thinks that between its currently depressed shares and its 4% dividend yield, Pepsi could return 150% over the next decade. "In the long term they're going to be fine," says Yacktman.

    Today is one of the best times in history to put money into global brands, says Jeff Auxier, 53, who runs $550 million from his 108-acre working farm in Lake Oswego, Ore. (to avoid the groupthink of Wall Street, he notes). He's been investing since the 1980s and running his own mutual fund (AUXFX) since 1999. (It has generated a total return of 6.6% per year.) With developed economies entering an extended period of deleveraging, Auxier says, brand companies are best positioned to prosper. Consumers will be forced to pinch pennies as governments curtail spending. Europe offers a glimpse of how difficult debt reduction can be.

    One effect of deleveraging, according to Auxier: People will eat more meals at home. During previous deleveraging periods -- the Great Depression is the best known -- consumer food stocks posted strong gains because people cut back on extravagances without completely eliminating them. "They may not eat dinner out," says Auxier, "but they'll still buy Ben & Jerry's for dessert." Unilever, which has owned the ice cream purveyor since 2000, has a stable of other food brands that Auxier believes will benefit from consumers' new spending habits. That, combined with expanding demand in emerging markets, should keep the company's earnings growth chugging along at its decade-long clip of 7% per year. Shares trade at 15 times next year's earnings, in line with their long-term average, and yield 4%.

    Auxier sees emerging-markets growth as helping fuel a world population boom -- an expected increase of 1 billion people by 2025 -- a trend that is also influencing the managers at Tweedy Browne's Global Value Fund in New York (TBGVX). By 2015, for the first time in 300 years, they say, the number of Asian middle-class consumers will equal the number in Europe and North America.