Seeking Alpha: Expensive And Hard To Own, Natura Cosmeticos Is Still A Great Brazil Play

Brazil may be a popular topic in international investing, but it's actually not all that easy to invest in some of the best Brazilian growth stories. Such is the case with Natura Cosmeticos (NUACF.PK). Natura is a true Brazilian success story and a fantastic play on the Brazilian consumer, but the U.S. ADR has virtually no liquidity and Brazil is an "institutions only" market for foreign investors. That said, there are readers who can buy these shares and even if you cannot own Natura today, it's a stock well worth following if you want to know more about what's going on in Brazil beyond the government-reported statistics.

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Expensive And Hard To Own, Natura Cosmeticos Is Still A Great Brazil Play

Unilever's Yo-Yo Diet

It does not seem like it was all that long ago that Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever (NYSE:UL) (NYSE:UN) was slimming down, centralizing and cutting its product portfolio. Nevertheless, Unilever has decided that it is time to get a little bigger again, and the company is buying Alberto-Culver (NYSE:ACV), a hair and skin care specialist, in an all-cash deal. 

The Terms 
Unilever is proposing to pay $3.7 billion in cash, or $37.50 per share. That is a rather healthy premium for Alberto-Culver. Even granting that the spin-off of Sally Beauty Holding (NYSE:SBH) makes past cash flow performance less predictive, investors have to make some rather exceptional profitability improvement assumptions to make Unilever's price seem sound. On the other hand, this deal will meaningfully expand Unilever's market share and there are solid reasons to think that Unilever's marketing machine will do more to grow Alberto-Culver's brands and international exposure than the company did on its own. 


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Sanofi Ups The Pressure On Genzyme

It is not exactly a hostile bid, but French drug company Sanofi-aventis (NYSE:SNY) has certainly stepped up its efforts to acquire American rare disease drug specialist Genzyme (Nasdaq:GENZ). Over the weekend, Sanofi went public with an offer for Genzyme of $69 per share in cash. Nothing about this announcement was really a surprise; there had been ample talk of a deal for weeks at this price, but it does move the proceedings from plausible rumor to truth.   

An Opportunistic Bid for Genzyme 
Genzyme's formal response to Sanofi's offer was predictable, if a bit confrontational. Genzyme not only rejected the bid, but deemed it so low as not to be worthy of further discussion with Sanofi's management. Those sound like bold words from a management team that has not delivered much shareholder value over the last five years until this bid.  

http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/Sanofi-Ups-The-Pressure-On-Genzyme-SNY-GENZ-SHPGY-PLX-ISIS0901.aspx