Ahold Delhaize: A Big European Retailer At A Reasonable Price

I’ve been a dividend investor for almost eight years. One of my first purchases back in 2013 was Walmart (WMT). This purchase was successful based on the total return of around 10% per year, but the dividend growth has been rather slow. Right now I want to increase the Euro-denominated part of my dividend portfolio. This article will explain why I chose to start a position in Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize, a competitor of Walmart in the US market.

Business model

Ahold Delhaize (ADRNY) is a Dutch grocery retail company. Its business model includes supermarkets, convenience stores, hypermarkets, online grocery, online non-food, drugstores, and liquor stores. It’s focused on the US and European market. In the US the biggest local brands are Food Lion, Stop & Shop and Giant. In Europe the biggest local brands are Albert Heijn (The Netherlands), Delhaize (Belgium) and Mega Image (Romania). Roughly 40% of revenues are made in Europe and the other 60% in US markets. The biggest competitors in the US markets are (among others) Walmart, Target (TGT) and Kroger (KR).

Read the rest of the article at Seeking Alpha!

Brookfield Renewable Partners: Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P. (BEP) is a globally diversified, multitechnology, owner and operator of renewable power assets. In my last article I wrote about ESG investing and whether Ecolab could be an addition to my portfolio. In this article I’ll take a dive into Brookfield Renewable Partners.

Business model
The business model of BEP is actually rather simple. They acquire and develop renewable power assets and businesses (mainly hydro, solar and wind), finance these assets with a mix of debt (investment grade basis) and equity and optimize cash flow and value utilizing their operating expertise. BEP locks in stable cash flows via long-term (usually 20-year), inflation-adjusted power purchase agreements (PPAs). These contracts are mostly entered into with utilities, distribution companies, and industrial users. Most of these counterparties have investment-grade credit ratings, and the weighted average remaining contract is for 16 years.

Read the rest of this article on Seeking Alpha!

ESG Investing: The Case of Ecolab

Ecolab Inc. (ECL), headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, is an American global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets.

Lately, I've been tracking companies that rank higher on various ESG guidelines. ESG refers to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in a company or business: Environmental, Social and Governance. For instance, Ecolab is the 2nd biggest position (after Microsoft) in the MSCI USA ESG Select Index. This index is optimized to be sector diversified, targeting companies with high ESG ratings in each sector.

The question is whether these criteria could help to better determine the future financial performance of companies and the potential return for its investors. Let's take a look at Ecolab and discuss whether it can be a good addition to your portfolio at current prices.

Read this article at Seeking Alpha

Financial Review Of The Debt Structure Of The 4 Biggest Healthcare REITs

In the last few years there have been various occasions where speculation about possible interest rate hikes have impacted share prices in the short term, especially for REITs. Two years ago I wrote an article about the sensitivity of Omega Healthcare Investors and three other healthcare REITs to a possible interest rate hike. You can read the article here.

I concluded that OHI seemed less sensitive to interest rate changes because they only have to refinance a much smaller portion of their debt load before 2019. So this begs the question: at this moment, how do different healthcare REITs compare on the sensitivity to interest rate hikes? Which REIT is best equipped, from an operational perspective, to withstand rising rates in the future?

Want to read the rest of the article? Check it out here!

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4007273-financial-review-debt-structure-4-biggest-healthcare-reits

Medical Properties Trust: Hospitals Are Great Real Estate Investments, But Not Right Now

Medical Properties Trust (MPW) is one of the leading providers of real estate capital to hospital operators across the United States and Western Europe. MPW's portfolio is mostly invested in for-profit hospitals. It includes more than 200 properties across 29 states and five countries. In my latest article on Seeking Alpha I discuss whether MPW can be a good addition to your portfolio.

Link: http://seekingalpha.com/article/4004401-medical-properties-trust-hospitals-great-real-estate-investments-right-now

Great Total Return Prospects For This Transformed Healthcare REIT

Lately, I've been following the healthcare REIT sector more closely because most companies in this sector are stable income producers, have solid business models and great demographic trends ahead of them. Recently I wrote about OHI here and about Ventas here.

Another interesting REIT is Sabra Health Care REIT. In my next article for Seeking Alpha I discuss Sabra and whether it can be a good addition to your portfolio at its current price.

Check it out here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/4002687-great-total-return-prospects-transformed-healthcare-reit

Ventas: Wait For The Valuation To Cool Down

Ventas is a real estate investment trust with a highly diversified portfolio of seniors housing and healthcare properties located throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. It is part of the "Big 3" in healthcare REITs (including Welltower, HCP and VTR). Lately, I've been following this sector more closely because most companies in this sector are stable income producers, have a solid business model and great demographic trends ahead of them. Let's take a look at Ventas and discuss whether it can be a good addition to your portfolio at current prices.

Read the rest of the article here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/4001126-ventas-wait-valuation-cool

Total Return In The Industrial Gases Sector: Why Airgas Outperformed Praxair And Air Products And Chemicals

Just before the weekend another article of mine was published on Seeking Alpha. The topic of the article is total return in the industrial gases sector. Total return is based on different variables like revenue, margins, outstanding shares and valuation multiples. Insight into the breakdown of various contributors to total return provides an investor with knowledge about which components have been important and whether repeatability can be expected in the future. Fellow author Eli Inkrot has written at length about this topic, recently in a side-by-side comparison of Kroger (NYSE:KR), Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Target (NYSE:TGT). As I have written about the industrial gases sector before, I was interested to see how this analysis worked out.

You can check it out here, it's called: Total Return In The Industrial Gases Sector: Why Airgas Outperformed Praxair And Air Products And Chemicals

Textainer: Dividend Seems Safe But Investors Need Courage

Textainer is facing difficult times. Rental rates are historically low and renewing long term leases at lower prices puts a dent in revenues. Textainer should be able to maintain their dividend, unless something dramatic and unforeseen happens. Read the rest of the article on Seeking Alpha!

Omega Healthcare Investors: A Healthcare REIT That Under Promised And Over Delivered In The Last Decade

When I wrote my monthly update last Wednesday and had to write about my Seeking Alpha goal (writing 24 articles this year) I was actually feeling a little bit miserable about myself. I already had some valuation analysis done for Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) and decided to put it in an article.

I have been a shareholder of Omega Healthcare Investors since December 2013. Back then I opened a position for roughly $30 a share. I was attracted by the consistent revenue growth in the past few years, high dividend growth rate and yield. This purchase has become one of my better buys in the past years with an annualized rate of return of almost 18%. I am contemplating adding to my position, but does that make sense when the stock has performed so wonderful the last 1.5 years? It must be overvalued, right? However there are some great companies like Johnson & Johnson, Colgate and Disney that constantly seem overvalued but still have the ability to provide great rate of returns for a shareholder. I am not comparing Omega to these companies in any meaningful way but still would like to investigate whether the current valuation merits a buy or not.

You can read the rest of the article here:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3315655-omega-healthcare-investors-a-healthcare-reit-that-under-promised-and-over-delivered-in-the-last-decade

Praxair Is My Favorite Play In The Industrial Gases Sector

Recently I searched the CCC list and Westlake Chemical Corp. (NYSE:WLK) popped up on one of my screens. My own, self-made Excel application directly lists all the competitors in the particular industry (Chemical-Specialty), ranked by market cap. Praxair (NYSE:PX), an industrial gases company, was the biggest with a market cap of $38 billion, yet somehow I never heard of the company. However, just by looking at the company overview, I could see that this company could be a potential add-on to my dividend growth portfolio. 

There has only been one in-depth article on Seeking Alpha last year about this industry leader. So I decided to do a write-up of the company. Check out my new article on Seeking Alpha and let me know what you think.

Syngenta: Demographic Trends Will Result In Future Revenue And Earnings Growth

Syngenta AG is a Swiss agribusiness operating in the crop protection and seeds business. In 2000, the agrochemical and seeds division of Novartis and the agrochemicals and biotechnology research divisions of AstraZeneca spun-off and merged to become Syngenta. Syngenta recently popped up in one of my screens in the CCC-list with a decent yield and high dividend growth rate. My article on Seeking Alpha provides a breakdown of the company and whether it is worthy as a possible addition to my dividend growth portfolio!

Go check it out and I am looking forward in hearing your reactions!

Syngenta: Demographic Trends Will Result In Future Revenue And Earnings Growth

Syngenta AG is a Swiss agribusiness operating in the crop protection and seeds business. In 2000, the agrochemical and seeds division of Novartis and the agrochemicals and biotechnology research divisions of AstraZeneca spun-off and merged to become Syngenta. Syngenta recently popped up in one of my screens in the CCC-list with a decent yield and high dividend growth rate. My article on Seeking Alpha provides a breakdown of the company and whether it is worthy as a possible addition to my dividend growth portfolio!

Go check it out and I am looking forward in hearing your reactions!

Financial Review Of 3 Asset Management Companies: My Favorite Is BlackRock

I started to year of great by writing an article for Seeking Alpha on three companies in the asset management sector, titled: Financial Review Of 3 Asset Management Companies: My Favorite Is BlackRock.

The three companies I investigated were Franklin Resources (BEN), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) and BlackRock (BLK). BlackRock is the biggest one in terms of assets under management (roughly $4.500 billion). Check out my article if you want to know why BlackRock is my favorite stock in this space! Please let me know what you think of the article.

Disclaimer: I currently don't own stock in any of the companies mentioned.

Northrop Grumman: Beacon Of Stability In An Unstable World

Earlier this week I wrote a new article on Northrop Grumman for Seeking Alpha.You can check it here! Some people are opposed to investing in military and defense companies like NOC. I am not one of those, because it's not the companies or their products that cause war and turmoil, it's people and their politicians. As an investor you might as well profit and hedge yourself in times of geopolitical tensions.

What do you think?

Omega Healthcare Investors: Sensitivity To Rising Interest Rates Compared To Other Healthcare REITs

Last weekend I wrote a post about Omega Healthcare Investors, one of the companies I own in my DGI portfolio. I compared the sensitivity to interest rate changes to other healthcare REITs like Ventas, HCN and HCP. Do you want to know what the outcome is? Read it here!

I am curious to know what you thought of the article. Let me know and drop a comment below or at Seeking Alpha. Thanks!

Monte Carlo Simulation Techniques Show 9% Total Return For Donaldson Company Inc. During The Next 5 Years

My new article about Donaldson Company Inc on Seeking Alpha got "Editor's Pick" status. In the article I used Monte Carlo simulation techniques to show the sensitivity of the annual total return for DCI in the coming 5 years. It was not only a great way to investigate a company like Donaldson, but it was also awesome to sharpen my skills with this particular analysis. Check it out here.

I am curious to know what you think about the article. If there are any questions about the article or spreadsheets, or if you have suggestions for future analysis, let me know!

A.O. Smith Heats Up Your Portfolio Returns But At A Hefty Price

I am on fire lately! My 2nd article has been published on Seeking Alpha, check it out here. I've reviewed the prospects of A.O. Smith, a leading company in the water heating business. Take a look ff you want and tell me what you think!

Once again I have to think Roadmap2Retire for being so kind as to check my grammar and provide me with advice!

I published my first article on Seeking Alpha!

Hello all, today Seeking Alpha published my first official article! It's called: "Evaluation Of My Position In Textainer Group Holdings: Sell, Hold, Or Add?". I focused on the increasing debt and weather this is sustainable or not. Go check it out on Seeking Alpha and tell me what you think of it!

I do have to thank Roadmap2Retire for his help on fixing the grammar mistakes. With his help the article was much better to read. Thanks again R2R!