Why does Kroger trade at such a low multiple?


I am not American so I never visited a Kroger store, and have little idea about the quality of the experience and of its products.

Comparing Kroger to other supermarket chains (like Walmart, Target or Cotsco) make the company seem extremely undervalued. Walmart for example has a PE of almost 40, against Kroger 14, Walmart revenues are 1.5 times its market cap, Kroger's are over 4 times. Similar arguments could be made for other competitors.

By looking at the company I havent seen many problems either. Revenues are growing, and so are EPS, the debt is decreasing and the margins are quite stable. Operating income has risen a lot and the number of outstanding share has been going down. It really doesn't look bad compared to other companies in the same sector.

The biggest treat I can see is the competition from Whole Food and Amazon Fresh, but their stores aren't necesserely in the same cities, and taking over a grocery gigant like Kroger (2700 stores if I am not wrong) would be a very big task, requiring huge investments and crazy capex.

Bonus for the strong expected economic growth of the USA, especially the states where Kroger is well established, like Texas.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *