19 Feb February 2009: A Look at the Consumer

Posted at 20:36h in 2009 Commentaries by

A LOOK AT THE CONSUMER

Last week, we attended the 2009 CAGNY Conference. CAGNY, the Consumer Analysts Group of New York, is the only independent investment conference of its kind and features presentations from twentyeight Chief Executive Officers and/or Chief Financial Officers from companies in the food, beverage and consumer products sector. Collectively, these executives provided a macro outlook for how this segment of Main Street is addressing the challenges of a difficult economic environment. Specifically, it was a unique opportunity to evaluate top management of several companies that we have in portfolios. Coincidently, WalMart is the largest customer of many of these companies and their strategic priorities were present in many of the companies’ presentations. A complete listing of the companies we heard from is shown below. We would like to share the following takeaways from the conference:



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