Hi Charles,
Woolworths (WOW) is certainly a company under scrutiny at present, its already made the press a couple of time over recent days for very different reasons:
- Outgoing WOW boss Brad Banducci was threatened with jail time for refusing to answer a direct question around profitability at a heated senate hearing.
- Morgan Stanley have identified the supermarkets including WOW as a risk from Ozempic et al. as people on the drugs will refrain from eating copious amounts of junk food.
Supermarkets remain in the political cross-hairs, accused of price gouging as the costs of living pressures increase but when WOW released 1H24 in February their underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) of $929m, was ~2.5% below expectations, not exactly the narrative the government is suggesting.
- WOW is now trading on 22.2x 1-year forward earnings, against its 5-year average of 23.7x, making it mildly cheap.
We like WOW as defensive play, especially is we see a news driven spike down towards $30.