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Gold/Mining/Energy : Yogen Fruz IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stocker who wrote (919)	12/13/1998 10:39:00 AM
From: telecomguy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2453

Good point about the effects of Asia & South America on YF's revenues. Of course as YF moves more towards the traditional channel of distribution for their frozen dessert product line through the acquisition of Integrated Brands and their investment into the manufacturing facility, they may become less exposed to the recession/depression in the international markets. In light of YF's past acquisitions, does anyone have a clear,concise idea of YF's strategic direction and their stated goals - in terms of revenue & product lines in the next 2 to 3 years? They started out as a Yogurt franchisor (high margin, low mgmt overhead but somewhat limited growth opportunity) and now are aggressively moving into orginal mfg. and broad distribution into the Grocery/Food stores (lower margin, high mgmt investement/overhead but much greater growth opportunity). It seems to me that YF is trying to position themselves as the pre-emininet world-wide Frozen Dessert company with it's own distribution channel into the supermarkets and with it's own manufacturing capacity. Are there companies that fit into this model? i.e. Vertically integrated food company that strictly concentrates on Frozen Dessert? At this point, who are YF's competitors? Perhaps YF sees a similar consolidation opportunity in the Frozen Dessert market if it is made up of bunch of underperforming specialists like Eskimo Pie and inefficient giants like Nestle, Neilson, etc.etc. If the above roughly describes what YF is trying to achieve, it is an interesting strategy and one that has lot of potential - but also fraught with danger as YF start to go head-to-head with the industry food giants. But as they say, no-risk-no-growth, and personally I like the fact that the Serruya brothers have the entrepreneurial skills and the ambition to build YF into a Global Frozen Foods multi-national company. They have the potential of becoming the Coca-Cola of the Frozen Foods business by their stated intention to market their products all over the world (including the third-world countries) and I feel that their recent corporate manoeuverings clearly indicate a strategy to acquire product lines, control mfg process, and then use the US as a base to launch a full line of Frozen dessert into a rapidly developing middle-class markets around the developing world. If they succeed even partially, YF stock price of $4 will seem laughably low in a few years and at this point, I can't think of any company with as little downside and as much upside potential as YF. I mean, with their international market literally in a depression, they still pulled off huge profits, huge revenue increases in the past year, and are sitting on a pile of cash warchest to boot. Compared to some of the internet companies that has experienced ballooning stock price increases - on ZERO fundamentals - I think the YF story is an incredible investment opportunity for those of us that invest strategically and make their bets based on management - first & foremost. But YF is being punished by momentum players, day-traders, and those lemmings that work at the institutional fund mgmt companies who typically make short-term decisions (contrary to their advertising)and are driven by political concerns - i.e. the need to keep their job! Fortunately in life, the cream always has a way of rising to the top - eventually. By the way, my understanding is that YF has very limited distribution/franchising operation in Europe - the dominant dessert market in the world. I wonder why they have not been more aggressive in terms of franchising and acquisitions in the lucrative European market?