As I said in my recent video “Quick Pick Kimberly-Clark,” I’m adding this stock to my Dividend Portfolio effect tomorrow July 6.
The stock pays a dividend of 3.39%.
That’s not knock-your-socks-off stuff, but very good for a very defensive consumer staples stock as we move closer to a recession. The stock is down 2.69% year to date as of the close on July 1 but the shares are up 10.31% in the last three months
People will keep buying the company’s brands–Scott, Kleenex, Cottonelle, Kotex, and Depend–during a recession. And the company looks to have solid revenue growth ahead for the rest of 2-22.
The company isn’t immune to inflation, but its cost-cutting program remains on track.
Let’s take the company’s first-quarter earnings report as a template.
Top line revenue grew by 7% year over year. Organic sales were up 10%. And Kimberly-Clark was able to raise prices by 6%. (Volumes were up 2%.) Management said that it expects sales in 2022 to increase 2% to 4% year over year with organic sales up 4% to 6%.
The company is also taking aggressive steps to reduce costs. Its 2018 Global Restructuring Program and the allied Focus on Reducing Costs Everywhere (FORCE, get it?) generated $50 million in cost savings in the first quarter.
Inflation, nonetheless, cost the company in the first quarter. Gross margins of 29.8% ninth first quarter were down 420 basis points from the gross margins in the first quarter of 2021. Adjusted operating profit was $629 million, down from $804 million in the first quarter of 2021. Management expects adjusted operating profit to be down low to mid-single digits percent in 2022.
I expect Kimberly-Clark, No. 2 in many U.S. markets to Procter & Gamble (PG) to outperform that stock in a time of consumer worries because its brands, by and large don’t command the premium prices that Procter & Gamble generates with its huge advertising spend, but the company has enough market share to command retail store shelf space.
