Euan Sanderson, senior vice president, US equity operations at Standard Life Investments, on the battle to attract price-conscious customers.
One of the most significant challenges confronting consumer-facing businesses in the USA has been their capacity to pass higher raw materials costs on to their cash-strapped customers. Attempts to digest these costs have inevitably hit companies’ profit margins, even if absolute sales volumes have remained relatively robust. Against this backdrop, selected value can be found with domestic staples firms which are gaining market share while also improving profitability. In the soft drinks industry, the biggest two players, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, appear to have signalled an end to indust...
To continue reading this article...
Join Investment Week for free
- Unlimited access to real-time news, analysis and opinion from the investment industry, including the Sustainable Hub covering fund news from the ESG space
- Get ahead of regulatory and technological changes affecting fund management
- Important and breaking news stories selected by the editors delivered straight to your inbox each day
- Weekly members-only newsletter with exclusive opinion pieces from leading industry experts
- Be the first to hear about our extensive events schedule and awards programmes