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Deep Value: cash covers about 95% of the stock price

This company holds roughly $739M in cash and investments — about 95% of its entire stock-market value, based on its latest quarterly filing. You're paying very little for the actual business. Sometimes that's a genuine bargain or a takeover target, sometimes it's cheap for a reason. Not a buy signal on its own — always ask why it's this cheap.

Princes Group logo

Princes Group

PRN.L
33
Packaged Foods · Consumer Defensive
Price
320.00 GBp
+1.50 (+0.47%)
Market Cap
£783.0M
Exchange
London Stock Exchange
Winston Score
33
Winston is serious
Below-average fundamentals — multiple weak pillars.
Based on the IPO prospectus (annual filing). This score will refine automatically once the company reports its first quarters.
Data as of Aug 23, 2026
How the score breaks down
Quality
Weak
Growth
Weak
Cash Flow
Strong
Stability
Good
Valuation
Good

Share count falling — buybacks

60.6% over 3y

The company has reduced its share count over this period, returning value to shareholders through buybacks.

Diluted shares outstanding: 244.7M (2022) → 96.5M (2025)

Winston Score History

The full picture

Princes Group is a UK-based food and drink company that makes and sells a wide range of everyday grocery products. Its core products include canned fish, canned fruit and vegetables, cooking oils, fruit juices, and soft drinks, sold mainly to large supermarkets and retailers across the UK and Europe. The company is one of the largest ambient food and drink suppliers in the United Kingdom.

Princes earns money by selling packaged goods directly to retailers, who then sell them to shoppers. It operates primarily in the UK, with additional operations in continental Europe, and generates roughly $0.8 billion in market value. The company's scale and long-standing relationships with major supermarket chains give it some competitive stability, but its very thin operating margin of under 1% shows how much pressure it faces from rising input costs and retailer pricing power. The main risk going forward is that commodity costs — like fish, vegetable oils, and packaging materials — can rise quickly and squeeze already narrow profit margins.

Score breakdown

Every number that matters to educated investors.

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Quality

Profit per sale
Gross Margin
20.3%
no trend
Thin — 20.3% gross margin
Profit after running costs
Operating Margin
4.0%
no trend
Thin — 4.0% operating margin
Return on the money invested
ROCE
6.1%
no trend
Weak — 6.1% return on capital

ROIC between 5% and 15%. They earn 5 to 15 cents back per year on every dollar invested.

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Growth

Sales growth
Sales YoY
-8.9%
no trend
Shrinking sales (-8.9% YoY)
Profit growth
EPS YoY
N/A
no trend
Data not available
How steady the profit is
EPS Consistency
N/A
no trend
Data not available

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Cash Flow

Profit that turns into cash
Cash Conversion
555%
no trend
Turns 555% of profit into real cash
Spare cash per sale
FCF Margin
6.6%
no trend
Modest free cash flow (6.6%)

FCF margin between 0% and 10%. Some cash from sales, but not a lot.

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Stability

What it owes vs what it owns
Debt / Equity
0.18
no trend
Conservative — low debt load (0.18)
Covers its interest
Interest Cover
1.96x
no trend
Dangerous — barely covers interest (2.0x)

Interest coverage between 1 and 3. Profits cover interest, but with little room to spare.

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Valuation

Price vs profit
P/E Ratio (TTM)
8.6x
Attractive valuation — P/E 8.6

P/E under 10. The price tag is small relative to last year's profit.

Cheaper or dearer next year
P/E vs Forward
N/A
not available
Data not available

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Dividends

Not applicable for this business.
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