Three stocks that should provide a healthy income whatever the economic weather

published 6 July 2018

Each week, a professional investor tells us where he'd put his money. This week: Sam Morse of the Fidelity European Values Fund picks three stocks growing their dividends.

The approach I take to managing the Fidelity European Values Fund is to look beyond the economic and political noise and concentrate on the real-life progress of listed businesses across this large and diverse region. In running the fund, I focus on researching and investing in stocks I believe can grow their dividends consistently, irrespective of the prevailing economic backdrop. History shows that these companies tend to outperform the market over the longer term.

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To give you a good example of the type of company I look for, the fund holds a position in French cosmetics house L'Oral (Paris: OR), a world leader in the industry, with plenty of resilience to any potential downturn in the global economy. The company has managed to deliver consistent dividend growth over the years, close to a double-digit rate. L'Oral's growth has been driven by various factors, including a rising middle-class in emerging markets, an expansion of the ageing population, as well as the cultivation and strengthening of its brands and innovation. This provides L'Oral with further opportunities to expand its market share both organically and through bolt-on acquisitions.

Another example is the Swiss firm Roche (Zurich: ROG), a multinational biopharmaceutical company, with a long-term track record of growing dividends. Over the past couple of years, the healthcare sector has performed poorly owing to pricing pressures in the US and a weakening dollar relative to the euro. Nevertheless, I believe that Roche is at a very interesting juncture today, and its dividend growth will accelerate from here. The company has a number of "best in class" newly launched drugs that can drive growth and fend off "bio-similar" products from competitors.

A final example is Kone (Helsinki: KNEBV), an international engineering and maintenance services company based in Finland that specialises in elevators. This is a good example of a business that has plenty of scope to be revitalised and grow its returns further. The company first established itself in China at a time when the market was growing rapidly and experiencing high levels of competition. In turn, this triggered a drop in the company's profits and margins. However, we believe that the Chinese market is beginning to stabilise, and this should work to Kone's advantage, as smaller players in the industry are more likely to feel the pressure of the rising cost of raw materials. As a result, Kone, which already pays a very attractive dividend yield of 3.7%, will see an acceleration of dividend growth and will be able to maintain its healthy balance sheet. The latter gives the firm plenty of scope for mergers and acquisitions, as well as further investment opportunities.

Sam Morse is a portfolio manager of Fidelity European Values.He joined Fidelity in 1990 as a research analyst and four years later he progressed as a portfolio manager in 1994, where he was responsible for running several retail UK equity funds and mandates. In 1997 Sam joined M&G as Head of UK Equities and one fund he ran in particular was the M&G UK Growth Fund. Sam then went back to Fidelity in 2004 as Head of the Institutional UK Equity Team, and his role consisted of developing UK equity solutions for institutional clients and managing UK equity portfolios. Since 2009 to present, Sam continues to manage the Fidelity European Fund and Fidelity European Trust PLC since 2011.