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Google Inc. [stckqut]GOOG[/stckqut] on Thursday rebuffed the European Union’s demand that it change the way it ranks online comparison-shopping services in its search results, setting up a potentially drawn-out legal battle between the search giant and a regulator empowered to levy billions of euros in fines.

In a formal response Thursday to antitrust charges the EU filed this spring against the California company, Google argued the bloc’s antitrust regulators erred in their analysis of the fast-changing online-shopping business, misconstrued Google’s impact on rival shopping-comparison services, and failed to provide sufficient legal justification for its demands.

In particular, the company argues that the EU’s charges—detailed in a document called a Statement of Objections, or SO—fail to take into account the fast growth of companies like Amazon.com Inc. [stckqut]AMZN[/stckqut] and eBay Inc [stckqut]EBAY[/stckqut]. Google executives have said these firms pose a new competitive threat, which undercuts the case that Google has harmed comparison-shopping companies like Nextag and LeGuide.

Source: Google Rebuffs European Union on Antitrust Charges – WSJ

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Company name Constellation Brands, Inc.
Stock ticker STZ
Live stock price [stckqut]STZ[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Fair

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

Employee productivity Good
Sales growth Good
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Good
EBIT growth Good

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Good
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $692.89
Target stock price (averages with growth) $392.58
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $97.14
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $182.36

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=stz

Constellation Brands, Inc. is an international beverage alcohol company. The Company’s operating segments include Beer, Wine and Spirits and Corporate Operations and Other. The Company’s wine portfolio is complemented by select spirits brands and other select beverage alcohol products. It is a multi-category supplier (beer, wine and spirits) of beverage alcohol in the United States. The Company’s customers include wholesale distributors, retailers, on premise locations and government alcohol beverage control agencies. In the United States, the Company operates 19 wineries using varieties of grapes grown in the Napa, Sonoma, Monterey and San Joaquin regions of California. It also operates eight wineries in Canada, four wineries in New Zealand and five wineries in Italy. The Company’s Canadian whisky requirements are produced and aged at its Canadian distillery in Lethbridge, Alberta.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in Constellation Brands, Inc.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor. You can review the best companies that I have found (and I probably invest my own money in most of these companies) in my Watch List.

How was this analysis of Constellation Brands, Inc. calculated?

For owners of my book, “The Confident Investor” I offer the following analysis (you must be logged in to this site as a book owner in order to see the following analysis). If you have registered and cannot see the balance of this article, make sure you are logged in and refresh your browser.
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In order to assist you in using the techniques of this book, the values that I used when calculating the Manual pricing above were:

  • Stock price at the time of the calculation: $122.42
  • Growth: 0.19
  • Current EPS (TTM): $3.97
  • P/E: 31
  • Future EPS Calc: $9.47
  • Future Stock Price Calc: $293.68
  • Target stock price: $182.35

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I hope that this makes you a Confident Investor.