WES share price
Founded in 1914, Wesfarmers is an Australian conglomerate headquartered in Perth. It mainly has operations across Australia and New Zealand, operating in retail, chemical, fertiliser, industrial and safety products.
It’s easy to think of Wesfarmers like a publicly listed private equity company. It has a long history of buying businesses, benefitting from their cash flows, re-investing in them and then selling them for a more attractive price. A good example of this might be Coles Group, which is bought in 2007 and spun out in 2018. However, by far (over 50%) of the company’s operating profit comes from Bunnings, the #1 hardware and home improvement business in Australia. It bought the remaining 52% of Bunnings that it didn’t own in 1994 for $594 million. Other brands include Kmart, Target, Officeworks, Blackwoods and Priceline Pharmacy.
Wesfarmers has long been considered a leading blue chip stock for the average ASX share portfolio. Wesfarmers has quality assets such as Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks and pays a consistent dividend to its shareholders.
CSL share price
CSL is a global biotechnology company that develops and delivers innovative medicines that save lives, protect public health and help people with life-threatening medical conditions live full lives.
The company is divided into three main business units: CSL Behring, CSL Seqirus and CSL Vifor. Behring, acquired in 2004, manufactures and distributes blood plasma products. Seqirus was formed by a rebranding of BioCSL and the acquired Novartis flu business (bought in 2015) makes flu-related products and performs pandemic-related services for Governments. Finally, Vifor makes products for iron deficiency and nephrology (renal/kidney care).
As previously mentioned, CSL’s plasma collection unit creates life-saving treatments for those will serious illnesses globally. CSL relies on plasma and blood collections to perform its primary businesses; and acquisitions are increasingly part of the CSL business. Investors often use CSL as an indirect play on rising spending on healthcare.
Share price valuation
One way to have a ‘speedy read’ of where the WES share price is, is to study something like dividend yield thru time. Remember, the dividend yield is effectively the ‘cash flow’ to a share holder, but it can be influenced by yearly or bi-yearly fluctuations. Currently, Wesfarmers Ltd shares have a dividend yield of around 2.72%, which compares to its 5-year average of 3.84%. Put simply, WES shares are trading below their historical average dividend yield.
Since it is a more mature-style business, the CSL share price is offering a historical dividend yield of around 1.16%, which compares to its 5-year average of 1.24%. The Rask websites, especially our Rask Education platform, offer free tutorials explaining Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and Dividend Discount Models (DDM). Both of these models would be a better way to value the CSL share price.
