Kennon-Green & Co. Global Asset Management, Wealth Management, and Investment Advisory

Disney Buys Lucasfilms Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse

The Walt Disney Company Adds Lucasfilm To Its Stable of Investments for $4.5 Billion

As you probably know by now, The Walt Disney Company has acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. in a $4.5 billion deal.  The studio owns franchises such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  Half will be paid in cash and the other half will be paid in newly minted shares of the company, diluting the existing owners.  However, the terms are so favorable that, frankly, it looks like George Lucas took a much lower price than he could have gotten elsewhere solely to have Disney protect the brand, given the latter’s reputation and massive resources.  Not even including the cash that Lucasfilm itself produces, Disney could pay for the acquisition in less than 6.7 months using the money generated by its vast empire.

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Starbucks IPO

A 20-Year Case Study of an Investment in the Starbucks IPO

I’ve done case studies in the past of slower growing, highly profitable businesses such as Clorox, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Colgate-Palmolive among them.  We’ve also discussed case studies of some initial public offerings, such as an investment in Tiffany & Company twenty-five years ago.  I thought it might be interesting to look at another…

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Nestle Headquarters Stock Investors from Google Earth

A Case Study of Nestlé SA Shareholder Returns With and Without Dividends Reinvested

Personally, my household owns shares of Nestlé SA, the Swiss-based chocolate, water, coffee, condensed milk, packaged food, and nutrition giant.  I’ve never been able to get as much of it as I want due to valuation1, but whenever the stock is within striking distance of my conservatively estimated calculation of intrinsic value, I write a…

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Clorox Bleach

A History of The Clorox Company and a Case Study of the 26-Year Investment Record

One of the additions I have been considering adding to the KRIP is The Clorox Company.  However, it appears somewhat overvalued right now, offering a lower earnings yield and slower sales growth compared to the S&P 500 if you view the index itself as a single stock, which doesn’t bode well on a relative basis.  That…

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Interracial Marriage Gay Marriage Equality

Mail Bag: The Politics of Anti-Gay Chick-fil-A, Brand Equity, and Personal Expression on the Job

In the post this morning about Brands and Brand Equity, I mentioned the Chick-fil-A scandal in passing; particularly how it has experienced a 50% drop in brand perception over the past few weeks as the scandal unfolds.  One of the questions was too expansion to deal with in the comments thread so I put it…

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Coca-Cola Stock with Dividends Reinvested Over Past 50 Years

Reinvesting Dividends vs. Not Reinvesting Dividends: A 50-Year Case Study of Coca-Cola Stock

Last week, I posted on a 50-year investment history of shares of The Coca-Cola Company.  As I was publishing this month’s About.com content, I began writing a piece that I called The Dividend Dilemma that focused on whether you should reinvest your dividends or not.  Around the same time, one of the readers, Matt Nix,…

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Community Coffee Bags

The Community Coffee Company Has Survived as a Family Business for 103 Years

For longer than I can remember, I have come across Community Coffee, a family-owned coffee roaster that is famous in the Southern United States, particularly the Louisiana area.  I have always intended to order their coffee to try it for myself but it would slip my mind.  During a recent episode of True Blood, I noticed it…

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Synthetic Gemstones

Synthetic Gemstones vs. Natural Gemstones

I’ve spent a big part of today doing investment research on synthetic gemstones vs natural gemstones.  Following the recent reading foray into the world of jewelry retailing, distributing, and mining, I kept coming across a company called Chatham.  They had reportedly perfected the art of manufacturing gemstones such as rubies and sapphires inside of a…

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Kennon-Green & Co. Global Asset Management, Wealth Management, and Investment Advisory