Becton Dickinson (BDX)

A great up trending stock chart. It is consolidating at the moment with lots of time to grow. Yield 1.3%. (Analysts’ price target is $251.11)

U.S. healthcare in the short-term? He prefers individual stocks over ETFs, starting with Becton Dickinson (and Zimmer Biomet, ZBH-N). In this sector, he prefers medical devices, not drugs which are easy to copy. Becton is a long-term opportunity and a play on demographics.

(A Top Pick May 19/17, Up 17%) They merged with C.R. Bard, another medical device company, so this has opened doors for them internationally. Dividend growing 10% a year. They continue to acquire and grow. He has owned it for 10 years.

He sees this as a good company, but not in his top 25. Healthcare technology has been very profitable and medical consumables is a niche area. There is good opportunity to grow through value add like prefilled syringes. He sees them as a high quality, low cost provider.

They bought C.R. Bard, the Canadian Tire of medical supplies and basically consolidated the industry, giving them tremendous market share and pricing power. They are now the premier company in this space.

It was a top pick for him in the past recently acquired CR Bald. A one stop shop for hospitals and clinics for all one time use medical devices (needles, etc.). Full service company from sales to programming to reordering, etc. now a gigantic company. Very good earnings. Very good guidance. They are going to benefit from tax reform. Big tail winds in healthcare. The biggest risk in healthcare is what Amazon is going to do. But not a lot of competition on the space. Just the US government spends 1.3 trillion dollars a year in health care.

Manufactures syringes and other medical devices. Just completed a big merger. The merger of 2 strong free cash flow growing companies has made them a powerhouse, and the stock has taken off after the announcement of the acquisition. Expectation is 10% free cash flow growth, and as a result, 10% dividend growth over time.

Their acquisition closed at the end of the year and they now have a commanding position. They will have great pricing power. They are well managed. (Analysts’ target: $245.00).

A healthcare name in devices. They have the Bard C R (BCR-N) acquisition that should close before the end of the year, which will give them a mid-single digit accretion and nice cost synergies. They are in the devices space, where capital spending worldwide is strong and growing. They are good about using dividends to return capital to shareholders. Dividend yield of 1.3%. (Analysts' price target is $234.50.)

Recently started buying this. For lack of a better way to describe it, this is like a full complete service provider for medical supplies to hospitals and clinics. They sell consumables such as syringes and catheters, and are trying to get more into drug delivery and software. Acquiring Bard C R (BCR-N). A great company and a good business to be in.

He reduced some of his med-tech in January. Almost every type of object that is used in the medical world is in their catalogue. He wants to see how their acquisitions work out. It is on his radar, but you are probably okay to hold it right now.

Acquiring Bard C R Inc., and is essentially going to be a one stop shop for hospitals, providing the product, providing analytics, providing administration. They get 58% of revenue from the US, so there is a big opportunity in emerging markets. He sees 5% revenue growth for many years to come. Sees them reducing debt in the next 2-3 years, and maybe making another material acquisition. Dividend yield of 1.4%. (Analysts’ price target is $216.50.)

This started a long time ago making syringes and needles, and that’s pretty much been their core. It’s all consumables in the hospitals, etc. Just made a recent acquisition of CR Bard (BCR-N) in the urology business. Both companies generate consistently growing free cash flows. There’s a 10% bump to the dividend every year. This merger is going to give them some debt that should be paid off within the next 2 years. He likes the company at this price.