Tag Archives: Avon Products

Avon Completes Refinancing Activities

By Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Completion of a public offering of $1.5 billion in notes was achieved by Avon Products at the same time it entered into a $1 billion four-year unsecured revolving credit facility, the company said yesterday.

The credit facility replaces a previous $1 billion agreement, while the proceeds from the offering nets Avon $1.48 billion with maturities of 3, 7, 10, and 30 years. All totaled, the consumer products company will be able to repay $1.9 billion of debt, reduce leverage, and provide financial flexibility to support its turnaround activities.

Avon’s executive vice president and CFO Kimberly Ross said, “Through this refinancing, we have achieved increased financial flexibility, which is critical to our ability to successfully execute Avon’s turnaround. Our refinancing activities have improved our balance sheet, and we are pleased with the outcome.”

Avon expects its interest expense will rise by about 10% this year compared to 2012 as it extends its maturity profile and decreases its reliance on floating rate debt. It will also be affected by one-time charges associated with make-whole premiums related to the prepayment of private placement notes of $65 million and $25 million, should it prepay its Notes due in 2014. 

Avon sells women’s beauty products and had nearly $11 billion in sales in 2012.

The article Avon Completes Refinancing Activities originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Duprey has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Thursday's Top Upgrades and Downgrades

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

This series, brought to you by Yahoo! Finance, looks at which upgrades and downgrades make sense, as well as which ones investors should act on. Today, it’s “good” news all around as analysts upgrade shares of Avon Products and VMware , while even downgraded Progressive gets a higher price target.

Say what?
Let’s go ahead and tackle that last one right away, because it’s a bit of a puzzler. This morning, analysts at RBC Capital Markets cut their rating on Progressive by one notch, dropping the property and casualty insurer to a “sector perform” rating. However, RBC also raised its price target on the stock, predicting the shares will hit $25 within a year. What’s up with that?

Actually, the answer is pretty simple. Previously, RBC had a $24 price target on Progressive and was encouraging investors to buy the stock. But Progressive shares crossed the $24 line back in mid-February and haven’t looked back since. With Progressive having achieved its target price, it’s only logical that RBC would now cool its enthusiasm on the stock — hence the downgrade. However, with the stock trading north of $25, Progressive had to at least raise its target price to match — or else consider making a sell recommendation. So what to do?

Personally, I probably would have gone ahead and recommended selling the stock. Priced at 17 times earnings yet having a growth rate of less than 9%, the stock looks expensive. Progressive costs more than its peers: The average property and casualty insurer today sells for a P/E of eight. And although Progressive pays a dividend, its 1.1% yield is hardly big enough to make it worth sticking around and owning an overpriced stock.

Avon calling
But after selling Progressive, where do you put the cash? Stifel Nicolaus this morning put a “buy” rating on Avon Products — but honestly, I disagree with this call as well.

Don’t get me wrong; despite being unprofitable today, Avon isn’t quite as bad as it looks. Free cash flow at the firm was a respectable $327 million last year, and Avon’s a pretty consistent cash-producer. The problem is that Avon doesn’t generate enough cash to be worth the $8.9 billion market cap it currently costs (or the whopping $10.5 billion enterprise value it carries, once you factor in debt).

At the more generous price-to-free-cash-flow ratio (let alone the less generous EV/FCF ratio) of 27, Avon’s 20% long-term growth rate fails to measure up. The firm’s dividend, at 1.2% today following a recent cut, isn’t enough to make up the difference. Long story short, the stock is almost as overpriced as Progressive — and unworthy of a buy rating.

A smarter choice: VMware
Fortunately, an investor today has better options, and as it turns out, one of them got recommended this morning by none other than RBC Capital. At the same time RBC was downgrading Progressive, you see, it was upping its rating …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance