The underlying tendency is to the upside for shares in L'Oréal and the timing is opportune to get back into the stock. A comeback of the upward dynamic can be anticipated.
Summary
● The company has strong fundamentals. More than 70% of companies have a lower mix of growth, profitability, debt and visibility.
● The company's Refinitiv ESG score, based on a ranking of the company relative to its industry, comes out particularly well.
Strengths
● The company returns high margins, thereby supporting business profitability.
● The company is in a robust financial situation considering its net cash and margin position.
● Over the past year, analysts have regularly revised upwards their sales forecast for the company.
● Analyst opinion has improved significantly over the past four months.
● Predictions on business development from analysts polled by Standard & Poor's are tight. This results from either a good visibility into core activities or accurate earnings releases.
Weaknesses
● With an expected P/E ratio at 34.38 and 32.5 respectively for both the current and next fiscal years, the company operates with high earnings multiples.
● The company's "enterprise value to sales" ratio is among the highest in the world.
● The company appears highly valued given the size of its balance sheet.
● The valuation of the company is particularly high given the cash flows generated by its activity.
● The firm pays small or no dividend to shareholders. For that reason, it is not a yield company.
L'Oréal is the world leading cosmetic group. The group offers skincare products (39.9% of sales), makeup products (19.7%), haircare products (15.4%), fragrances (12.6%), hair colouring products (8.3%) and other (4,1%). Net sales break down by family of products as follows:
- consumer cosmetics (36.9%): L'Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline New York, NYX Professional Makeup, Essie Niely, Dark and Lovely, Mixa, MG and Carol's Daughter brands;
- luxury cosmetics (36.2%): Lancôme, Kiehl's, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Biotherm, Helena Rubinstein, Shu Uemura, IT Cosmetics, Urban Decay, Ralph Lauren, Mugler, Viktor&Rolf, Valentino, Azzaro, Prada, Takami, A?sop, etc.;
- active cosmetics (15,6%): La Roche-Posay, Vichy, CeraVe, SkinCeuticals, Skinbetter Science, etc.;
- professional products (11,3%): L'Oréal Professionnel, Kérastase, Redken, Matrix and PureOlogy brands.
Products are marketed through mass distribution and distance selling, selective distribution, hair salons and pharmacies.
At the end of 2023, L'Oréal has 37 production sites worldwide.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Europe (31.6%), North America (27%), North Asia (25.9%), Asia/Pacific/Middle East/Africa (8.4%) and Latin America (7.1%).
L'ORÉAL 
