Bulls on Chinese appetites – for anything from chicken wings to handbags – have rampaged for years. Revenues at companies as diverse as Yum and Louis Vuitton have been boosted by China exposure. Investors in them have enjoyed stellar returns over the past decade – despite the occasional bump or bruise inflicted by a supply-chain scandal (Yum and McDonald’s) or an official clampdown on luxury gifts (Vuitton and Rémy Cointreau).
But China consumer-related stocks do not come cheaply. Chinese food and beverage names, for instance, trade at multiples of forecast earnings in the mid-20s. They are not priced to deliver disappointment.
A case in point: shares in beer maker and food retailerChina Resources Enterprise came a cropper last week. The company upset the market with a one-third drop in first-half net profit. The number missed analysts’ estimates badly. Despite losing nearly 10 per cent since, the company’s stock still trades at a multiple of 27 times (rapidly falling) 2015 forecasts.