Wrigley gum stock market
It's a year-old giant of its industry, but many of its famed products are generations old and face daunting competition from newer rivals.
Its overseas results--the bulk of its business--aren't doing much better. And it has a new chief executive who's all of That's the sticky situation at Wm.
And it's a set of problems that led investors to punish Wrigley's stock for most of this year. Wrigley's third-quarter performance, which showed mild improvement, and recent announcements by Chief Executive William Wrigley Jr.
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Wrigley has virtually no long-term debt on its balance sheet. Investors also applauded the company's recent hiring of a new chief financial officer, Ronald Waters from Gillette Co. To be sure, Wrigley isn't the only one struggling.
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Wrigley leads with Carefree and Bubble Yum. The young Wrigley took the company's reins in March when William Wrigley, his father and the company's prior chief executive, died of pneumonia. Certainly the entire Wrigley family has an incentive to boost the stock; the family still has majority voting control of the company.
And though the company and the clan once had a variety of interests--they formerly owned the Chicago Cubs baseball team, its Wrigley Field stadium and most of Catalina Island off the Southern California coast--the company now focuses on just making gum.
Wrigley executives declined to be interviewed, but spokesman Christopher Perille discounted the company's current sluggishness, saying it is in one of the periodic slowdowns that plague the industry, whether due to a lack of new products, heightened competition from non-gum snacks or weakness overseas. International sales, especially, had been growing at a double-digit pace for much of the s until problems in Asia and Russia braked that growth in the last 18 months, Perille said.
But those markets are slowly starting to improve, he said. Wrigley's Spearmint and Juicy Fruit both introduced in , along with Doublemint, Big Red, Freedent and Extra. Freedent and Big Red arrived in the s, and the sugarless gum Extra has been on the market since Trouble is, Wrigley's gums face enormous competition in U.
But in the third quarter, Wrigley finally showed signs of turning the corner--lighting a fire under its stock. And Wrigley is starting to peddle a breath gum in pellet form called Eclipse--only its second new gum in 15 years.
Eclipse is squarely aimed at curbing the inroads that breath mints have made into the gum market. STOCK SPOTLIGHT Jump in Wrigley's Stock Is More to Investors' Tastes.
Gum maker, dominant in a stagnant industry, grew earnings in recent quarter.
Wrigley Gum Stock Quote
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