General Mills (GIS) Focused on Growth Driving Innovation, CEO Powell tells CNBC
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of General Mills (GIS) - Get Report are trading higher 0.14% to $71.52 on Wednesday morning, as the company hosts its Investor Day in New York City. CEO Ken Powell joined CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" to discuss the company's success and future.
"We did it by listening really closely to the consumer, they want a more filling breakfast, more granola, and organic. It all goes back to giving them what they want and it's been going really well," Powell said.
Speaking to the company's continued push into the organic food market, General Mills recent acquisition of Annie's was also something Powell drove home, specifically when questioned about further M&A.
"We're very disciplined when it comes to M&A and we have to see return on value. Annie's has been a terrific acquisition in that regard for us. Clearly it's going to be a $1 billion business very soon, and I think it could go to $2 billion," Powell noted.
In terms of what General Mills will continue to expand upon and focus its futures business towards, Powell says it is all about dedication to the brands that have shown consistent growth potential.
"We're going to focus our support on the brands that have the highest growth potential. Cereal, yogurt, snack bars, Mexican foods, Totinos, and organic," Powell said, as well as committing further innovation and R&D in these areas.
Foundation brands will also be focused on, "Brands like Pillsbury refrigerated dough, a very good business for us, has great innovation coming. As well as Progresso Food," Powell noted.
Additionally, all of the products will use antibiotic free chicken. "We'll be the only leading brand doing that," Powell explained.
"Our focus now continues to be, value creation, driving the top-line through innovation, margin expansion, and getting cash back to our shareholders," he concluded.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings rates General Mills as a "Buy" with a ratings score of "A." This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that TheStreet Ratings rates.
The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, impressive record of earnings per share growth, notable return on equity, expanding profit margins and compelling growth in net income. TheStreet Ratings feels its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that TheStreet Ratings evaluates.
TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: GIS