Associated British Foods

Next up from my trawl through the FTSE100 is Associated British Foods.

ABF owns a number of well known brands such as Kingsmill, Ovaltine, Twinings and Ryvita. It also owns the Primark chain of clothes stores.

The market cap. is about £7 billion, the PE ratio about 18 and the dividend yield about 2%.

So is ABF worth dwelling on? Probably not. Its defensive nature has resulted in a higher PE ratio than Tesco and I know which company I would rather own.

For those looking for exposure to the food industry the fact that over one third of the profits come from Primark is a bit disconcerting.

Revenue growth of 15% in the latest reporting period looks nice but unless the PE ratio comes down substantially I will ignore this one.