EON AG Stock Split April 2008 !!

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Eon logo

E.ON held its AGM in Essen on April 20,2008. In this meeting the board proposed to:

1.Increase dividend by 22%
2.Split EON stock at the ratio of 3:1

The record date for the stock split has NOT been announced yet.

EON shares performed very well last year beating the DAX and the European Utilities Index.EON stock grew by 42% in 2007.

From Reuters:
“Shares in German utility E.ON are up 2.3 percent, outperforming Frankfurt’s top-30 DAX index after the group’s 2007 results beat expectations.

Investors also cheer E.ON’s higher than expected dividend — 4.10 euros per share — and a share split, traders say. “Key figures for 2007 were above our estimates and above consensus estimates,” DZ Bank analyst Mario Kristl says in a note.

“We see E.ON still on track. Due to the high power prices throughout Europe the company should continue to reach significant operating increase rates,” says Kristl, who rates the stock “buy” with a fair value of 155 euros.”

For more details goto:

1. EON IR site
2. Eurex EON AG stock split circular: eon-ag-stock-split.pdf

BusinessWeek Euro 50 List for 2008 !!

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The latest issue of BusinessWeek has the Euro 50 list for this year. This list represents the top 50 European companies based on many factors such as profitability, sales growth,innovation, etc. These were picked from the S&P Europe 350 constituents which represent 350 of the big firms in Europe.

Out of this top 50 list, only 19 of them are available in the US as depository receipts for US investors. The table below lists those stocks:

[TABLE=53]

More info can be found here

Veolia Environnement ADR !!!

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Veolia Environnement (VE) is a French Utility company with over 300K employees.It operates in water,environmental,transportation and energy segments.Public transportation is heavily encouraged and utilised in France. VE operates in this profitable business such as the railway, airport facilities maintenance and services.

The stock has performed very well over the past 5 years as shown in the chart below. Recently it has fallen from nearly $100 to $72 due to the overall market conditions.Over the past 1 year the stock has been flat to down.

5 Year Chart:


Details:
Company: Veolia Environnement
Country: France
Ticker: VE
Dividend Yield: 4.5%
– Part of S&P; ADR Index.

Two Tobacco ADRs !!

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This is our first post on “Sin” stocks. There are not that many foreign stocks that can be categorized as sin stocks. Lets look at two of the tobacco ADRs.

1.British American Tobacco plc
Ticker: BTI
Mkt. Cap: $76+ B
Dividend Yield: 4.89%

2.Imperial Tobacco Group plc
Ticker: ITY
Mkt. Cap: $35+ B
Dividend Yield: 3.91%

Both these cigarette makers have famous brands. For eg – BTI owns the Dunhill, Kool, Luck Strike, etc. brands. It operates in all the continents except Antartica where penguins live and don’t smoke.:-) Imperial owns brands like Davidoff, West, Lambert & Butler, Classic, JPS, Horizon, Maxim, Excellence, The Golden Virginia, etc.

Investing in tobacco stocks is not for the faint hearted since these companies are the target of lawsuits all the time.One multi-million class action case can wipe out many millions from profits.

5-year chart:


Clearly BTI and ITY beat the S&P; 500 nicely. A $10K invested 5 years ago in BTI would be worth $42,988 as of May 24, 2008.