Specialist
Former Managing Director at Valeo Foods Ltd
Agenda
- Trading environment and consumer demand-side dynamics, including coronavirus implications
- Valeo Foods' branded growth model and portfolio evolution
- Cash flow considerations and profitability outlook
Questions
1.
What have been the key trends across the Irish and UK ambient and branded food sector over the past 18 months? What was happening pre-coronavirus and what is happening now?
2.
Have you started noticing any reversion of the major coronavirus-driven trends such as home cooking and switching from private label to brands? Are these trends slowly starting to unravel, or do you think they’ve still got legs?
3.
Have you noticed anything around pricing over the last 18 months? Has Valeo been able to slightly increase prices or decrease the amount of promotional activity it’s passing through, given the high demand?
4.
How do you expect prices to move over the next 12-18 months, especially for Valeo Foods? How might cost price inflation affect pricing?
5.
Are there any other aspects outside of commodity prices that we should be cognisant of, especially for Valeo Foods? Do you think labour cost inflation and labour shortages will impact Valeo as well?
6.
How have the global supply chain disruptions and the Brexit-driven headwinds impacted Valeo? Are some supply and raw material shortages coming through that supply chain challenge?
7.
What do you make of Valeo’s growth over the last 18 months vs the broader Irish and UK packaged and ambient goods market? Do you think it has over- or under-performed?
8.
Which sectors has Valeo over- and under-performed in? How might it return to growth in the sectors where it is lagging?
9.
How do you expect Valeo’s portfolio to change, given that it’s just been bought out and there’s a lot of debt going into the business? Do you expect the company to sell off any brands? If so, are there any brands you would expect to be sold off more than others?
10.
Could you elaborate on the Italian business, what it means for Valeo and why you think it could be a spin off opportunity?
11.
How is Valeo’s portfolio set up to capture the health and wellness trend? Do you think it needs to develop or acquire new brands to be part of this growing trend?
12.
Do you think Valeo’s culture, of a lot of return on capital employed and a lot of focus on cash flow, will change? Do you expect this to change because the new owners are searching for high-level growth?
13.
What do you think are Valeo’s key growth opportunities? What low-hanging fruits might it go after first?
14.
Are there any potential acquisition targets that you think would be a good fit for the Valeo model?
15.
You mentioned Valeo has been really good at finding synergies and taking out cost, so would you say there’s not much cost left to take out?
16.
What do the discounters mean for Valeo as a business? Does it service the discounters to a big rate? Is the business more skewed towards general retailers?
17.
Valeo plays slightly in private label. Do you expect the growth in private label to force Valeo to increase its private label penetration?
18.
Do you have any sense of the range that Valeo’s private label offering might occupy as a percentage of sales?
19.
Is the sustainability and availability of aluminium and cans an issue for Valeo? How might the company combat this issue? How might this affect cash flow and margins?
20.
Would the HFSS [high fat, sugar or salt] legislation in the UK be quite a big headwind for Valeo? Is there anything the company can do to combat it?
21.
What is your 12-24-month outlook for Valeo’s margins, given everything we have discussed?
22.
Are there any big CAPEX requirements other than potential acquisitions for Valeo? How well-equipped and state-of-the-art are its manufacturing firms? Is any refurbishment needed there?
23.
Is there enough capacity to sustain growth over the medium term?
24.
What is your 24-month outlook for Valeo, touching on growth, margins and the other key points you mentioned?
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