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Emma Wall: Hello, and welcome to Morningstar. I'm Emma Wall and I'm joined today by Tom Walker, Manager of the Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust (MNP), to give his three stock picks.
Hello, Tom.
Tom Walker: Hi, Emma.
Wall: So, what's the first stock?
Walker: I'd like to talk about Visa. It's a company we all know pretty well, payment processing. Visa (V) is the largest of the payment processing companies. It has about 56% market share and MasterCard comes next about half that and then there's a large China company, UnionPay, which is about 13%, so a lot smaller.
Visa is a strong growth company. It's benefiting from secular trends like online retail, the move from check and cash to credit and debit card. So there is a very strong secular growth story there. Its share price has been held back a bit this year. There's some litigation outstanding. But we think that's not going to be material and it's going to be quite long-dated.
What we really like about Visa at the moment is that it's just bought Visa Europe which was previously owned by the banks as a not-for-profit organization. Visa Europe's margins are much lower than the rest of Visa, so we see huge uplift in margin potential.
In addition, Visa Europe had no debt, so there was no financial structuring. So we think by gearing up they can improve returns there as well. This is a company that we think can grow its earnings at 20% per annum for the next five years. Now while 24 times next year's earnings might sound expensive, that sort of growth which we think is visible growth, we find very attractive at the moment.
Wall: What's the second stock?
Walker: The second stock is Delphi Automotive (DLPH). It's a large auto components manufacturers. It's in over 40 countries, over 100 manufacturing outlets, spun out of General Motors in 1999 and General Motors is still about 20% of its revenue, but its top seven customers represent 50% of its revenues.
So, it's fairly well spread and sells to all the big auto manufacturers in the world. It's benefiting from the trends in clean cars, safe cars, and also the growth of connectivity infotainment in the car and these very strong drivers of its earnings mean that we think this company can grow its earnings at around 15% per annum for the next five years.
Now, it's obviously a cyclical sector, auto manufacturing. We think it's not a hugely bullish outlook for the sector but these secular trends for Delphi particularly will drive that growth and mean that on 10.5 times next year's earnings, cheap and has not performed particularly well lately because people are worried about the auto cycle, but because of that we think it's a very attractive stock on that sort of five-year view.
Wall: Automakers are very sensitive to – they're often used as a barometers underlying economic health. Are component parts as sensitive to the U.S. economy, for example, or they once removed from that?
Walker: Well, I mean, Delphi actually has exposure all around the world but the U.S. is the biggest market, its original equipment as well as spare parts, but it is mostly original equipment. So, a key indicator of the health of the industry is how auto sales are going. So that is very important. We do monitor that. What we like about Delphi is it's actually benefiting from more of its stuff going into, for example, an electric vehicle than goes into an old internal combustion vehicle. So there are those secular drivers which we think shield it to some extent from the cycle.
Wall: And what's the third and final stock?
Walker: Well, the third stock is probably well known to all your viewers, Alibaba (BABA), so online retail in China. So, the key drivers of that are the growth of the middle classes in China and the growth of online retail. We look at the Chinese economy and there have been some concerns about its slowing down, fixed asset investment slowing down, industrial production slowing down. But the one thing that's held up really well is retail sales still growing double-digits in China and increasingly Alibaba is gaining share from bricks and mortar type retailers.
Wall: Alibaba was the biggest IPO ever though and there was a lot of positive energy around it which pushed the price of the stock up. Then of course when things go up, often they come down. Where are we now from sort of a valuations point of view?
Walker: Well, in fact, I mean, Alibaba because of the nervousness about China in the year, a lot of China stocks were held back in terms of the performance. But I'd be incorrect to say that it hasn't performed well. But the growth is still very strong. Gross merchandise value in which measurement is bigger than Amazon of course, but the gross merchandise value still growing about 20% per annum and revenue, we think, growing near 40% per annum for the next five years.
So, we're looking at a company that's growing very, very strongly, trading on around 24 times next year's earnings. It has done well. But again, the secular drivers of growth give us confidence that it can produce those sorts of level of growth for at least the next five years.
Wall: Tom, thank you very much.
Walker: Thank you.
Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.
