Morningstar equity analysts are removing Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) from the Best Ideas list of undervalued high-quality stocks. While our thesis that the bank will build up to £20 billion of capital to return to patient shareholders remains intact and we think the shares are attractively priced, we think recent political events in the United Kingdom may mean that the road to get there will be rockier than we anticipated.
We're particularly concerned about the impact of uncertainty about Brexit, which we think has already had a negative impact on economic growth and RBS' ability to sell noncore assets. We think the negative impact is likely to linger on through 2016, even if a no vote prevails as we expect. We prefer to steer investors toward banks with more near-term upside, such as Citigroup, trading at a 29% discount to our fair value estimate.
Which UK Stocks are on the Best Ideas List?
Sentiment is low on Diageo following three years of underperformance, several strategic and execution errors, acquisitions that have failed to create value, and most recently, a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into its shipment practices. We think Diageo's wide moat is due to the breadth and strength of its brand portfolio and the scale of its production, which allows it to produce at a lower average cost than smaller competitors. These competitive advantages should drive sustained excess returns on capital.
The catalyst for the stock, however, remains a turnaround in volume. In an environment of low real wage growth, we like Diageo's self-help options for delivering that turnaround. First, management should right size channel inventory as a matter of priority, in order for medium-term growth to match depletions.
Second, Diageo should plug holes in its portfolio, particularly in brown spirits, without stretching its brands too thinly in noncore consumer segments. Third, it could unlock the value in its beer portfolio in Africa either by selling it or integrating the route to market of its beer and spirits portfolios. In addition to these self-help measures, Diageo's volume is likely to benefit from any macroeconomic upswing, as premiumisation is sensitive to the economic cycle in developed markets.
Kingfisher (KGF)
We think do-it-yourself retailers possess structural advantages against the encroachment of online competition in some categories, given the big-ticket nature of room remodeling, the inefficiency of shipping heavy items, and the emergency nature of some DIY purchases. We think these give Kingfisher a narrow economic moat. For most of 2015, the business underperformed our expectations for its normalised growth algorithm, but catalysts in its two core markets in the form of lower stamp duty in the United Kingdom and capital gain tax relief in France should boost housing transactions and prices in 2016, two of the critical drivers of home-improvement industry sales.
What is a Best Idea?
Morningstar believes that a company’s intrinsic worth results from the future cash flows it can generate. The Morningstar Rating for stocks identifies stocks trading at a discount or premium to their intrinsic worth, or fair value estimate, in Morningstar terminology. Five-star stocks sell for the biggest risk-adjusted discount to their fair values, whereas one-star stocks trade at premiums to their intrinsic worth.
Four key components drive the Morningstar rating: our assessment of the firm’s economic moat, our estimate of the stock’s fair value, our uncertainty around that fair value estimate and the current market price. This process ultimately culminates in our single-point star rating. Underlying this rating is a fundamentally focused methodology and a robust, standardised set of procedures and core valuation tools used by Morningstar’s equity analysts.
