NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Do you prefer red or white?
Either way, if you enjoy a good glass of Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Noir and you believe in investing in what you know, then wine maker Constellation Brands might be a stock worth considering.
In fact, Constellation Brands (Research) is one of the best performers of the decade so far. Shares have enjoyed a double-digit percentage gain every year for the past five years and are up 260 percent since the beginning of 2000.
And Wall Street analysts don't think it's time to put a cork in the stock just yet.
Constellation, whose brands range from low-end wines Paul Masson and Almaden (known for its wine in a box) to premium wines Ravenswood and Turner Road, has been a model of consistency for the past five years, averaging earnings growth of 21 percent a year.
Timothy Ramey, an analyst with D.A. Davidson, said part of Constellation's success can be attributed to the strengthening economy.
Also helping growth has been that the company is a voracious acquirer.
Constellation scooped up Australian wine maker BRL Hardy for $1.4 billion in 2003. And Constellation recently closed the purchase of well-known California vintner Robert Mondavi, which has a high profile stable of wines but had struggled in recent years.
Cheers for the Mondavi deal
The Mondavi deal, in particular, has Wall Street excited about Constellation's prospects.
"The Mondavi brand wasn't managed to its potential and a lot of people feel that Constellation will be an improvement," said Dan Ahrens, manager of the Vice fund. "Constellation has done an exceptional job integrating acquisitions." Constellation is the mutual fund's seventh largest holding.
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Constellation Brands has had an up year every year for the past five years and has trounced the broader market. |
Shares of Constellation are up more than 16 percent since the company first announced that it was interested in buying Mondavi in mid-October. (Mondavi agreed to the $1 billion deal in November.) Shares of an acquirer often fall in the short-term in the wake of a big purchase.
Mark Swartzberg, an analyst with Legg Mason, thinks that there are tremendous opportunities for cost savings from the acquisition.
As such, he thinks Constellation will earn $3.08 a share in fiscal 2006, which ends next February. That's eight cents ahead of the Wall Street consensus estimate.
Constellation may have more to say about earnings guidance when it reports its fiscal third quarter results for 2005 on Thursday after the closing bell. For the quarter, analysts are expecting 6 percent earnings growth, to 85 cents a share, and 8 percent sales growth, to $1.07 billion.
Investors in good spirits
There's more to the story than wine.
Constellation imports the Corona and Negra Modelo brands of beer and sells the Skol and Fleischmann's brands of vodka as well as Black Velvet Canadian Whisky.
In Constellation's fiscal second quarter, sales of beer and spirits accounted for 35 percent of the company's total revenues.
Ramey said that diversification is a good thing for Constellation, especially since he believes that spirit sales should continue to pick up thanks to increased television advertising for "harder liquors."
"MTV is chock full of ads for spirits. Spirits are more of a hip, for lack of a better term, product than beer or wine," Ramey said.
But the best thing about Constellation is that the stock, despite its premium vintage quality, isn't the Wall Street equivalent of a 1787 bottle of Chateau Lafite, which sold for $160,000 at an auction in 1985.
"Although Constellation's been a good performer every year, it hasn't been off the charts. There haven't been scary triple-digit returns," said Ahrens.
Shares trade for a downright thrifty 15 times fiscal 2006 earnings estimates. And analysts expect earnings to increase at about a 12 percent clip on average for the next few years.
With that type of valuation and growth potential, it looks like investors can raise a glass and toast what's likely to be another strong year for Constellation's stock.
Analysts quoted in this story do not own shares of Constellation Brands and their firms have no investment banking ties with the company.
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