3 UK Stocks for Growth Investors

Looking for stocks which will boost your portfolio performance? Gold-rated AXA Framlington fund manager Nigel Thomas highlights three mid-caps for growth investors

Emma Wall 23 July, 2015 | 12:00AM
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Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to Morningstar. I'm Emma Wall and I'm joined today by Nigel Thomas, Manager of the AXA Framlington UK Select Opportunities Fund.

Hi, Nigel.

Nigel Thomas: Good morning.

Wall: So, you are here today to give your three stock picks. What's the first stock?

Thomas: One stock I particularly like is Auto Trader (AUTO) that listed in the U.K. earlier in the year. They haven't printed a magazine since 2013. It's all online now and they cover about 64% of the franchise locals in the U.K. and about 84% of the non-franchise independent car retailers.

They are two to five times bigger than their nearest competitor Motors.co.uk and eBay Motors and they have about four times more site traffic than their competitors. So, it's a very profitable business and the Chairman of Auto Trader is the Ex-Chief Executive of Rightmove where I have a big shareholding and it's very similar dominant market player as Rightmove.

Wall: And how dependent on the domestic recovery is it, because car sales generally do track economic growth. Don't they?

Thomas: Yeah, and certainly, we are seeing disposable incomes going up at the moment. Interesting, today that as they will drop the price of diesel will lower the price of petrol on their locals and Morrisons dropped their prices yesterday. So, people do have a little bit more in their pocket to spend and I think automotive sales in the U.K. have been quite buoyant.

Wall: What's the second stock today?

Thomas: Second stock is Dixons Carphone (DC.). I was a big shareholder in Dixons prior to the merger with Carphone and obviously, both have benefited from big competitors going out of their industry, Comet in terms of Dixons, the demise of Comet and Phones 4u in terms of Carphone Warehouse.

So, the merger seems to be reaping a lot of benefit in terms of taking costs out there affecting their footprint in properties and I don't think that you'll ever go to a company for electrical goods and go to for an independent advice on cellular phone.

Wall: I think one of the concerns about this sort of company is how affected they are by the move to ecommerce because of course big, big electrical items, you see the likes of be in queue do fine because people will always go and want to see a large white good.

Things like phones though you no longer have to sort of go into a shop to get. Your friends have one, you see what it's like, you do it all over phone, you do it all over Internet. So, have they cornered this market? Are they threatened by that market or is ecommerce just part of their ongoing plans?

Thomas: Well, a lot of the big phone companies like to have that independent because they have their own shops, Vodafone, O2, and EE, but I think they need – some people like to go and have check which different packages they could trade off against. And also Dixons have got their online offering in terms of electrical good sorted. They are now aren't at the price premium to Amazon and AO.com that they were trading at same prices, and they are using their buying power as well.

Wall: And what's the third stock then?

Thomas: Third stock, probably a lot of people haven't heard of it. It is a company called RPC Group (RPC). It is a big pan-European – FTSE 250 pan-European plastic packaging company. They make things like plastic pails for paint, your coffee capsules, and also things like margarine tubs for Unilever.

It's growing quite nicely and consolidating in Europe. And it's on a very reasonable rating. And polymer prices should start to come down. There is a lot of – the price of diesel always come down below petrol that’s because there are a lot of refined products coming out of Saudi Arabia. Storage in Rotterdam is full and those cargos are coming into the U.K. And we should see the effect on polymer prices, which is the main feedstock for RPC come down as well. So they are beneficiary of commodity prices coming down.

Wall: And how reliant are they on the big contracts? You mentioned one of them is with Unilever. Is it diversified? If Unilever turned around tomorrow and cancelled their contract, would they be in trouble?

Thomas: Well, obviously, there is tension between pricing and volumes right across Europe. So there are quite a few players. The industry is consolidating. They are also very innovative. So they do double thickness polymers and innovate in terms of packaging like in the coffee capsules with the manufacturers. So they wholly align themselves with the manufacturers and they are very much part of the design process.

Wall: So it'll be harder then to go and find somebody else?

Thomas: Absolutely, yes.

Wall: Nigel, thank you very much.

Thomas: My pleasure.

Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
Auto Trader Group PLC667.40 GBX-1.36
AXA Framlington UK Select Opps R Acc3,538.03 GBP-0.28Rating
Currys PLC62.50 GBX-1.50

About Author

Emma Wall  is former Senior International Editor for Morningstar

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