Jefferies Gives Nielsen Update

November Nielsens continued soft, with Proctor & Gamble PG showing growth, while Colgate Palmolive CL, Clorox CLX and Kimberly Clark KMB showed further declines. PG is the only company with positive YtD sales growth. Private label remains slightly below 4Q 2009 peak levels, while year-over-year pricing was down for the 13th out of the last 16 Nielsen periods. Clorox posted the weakest Nielsens among our group with a -4.3% sales decline in November. The sequential trend deteriorated on a one- and three-year basis. Colgatre Palmolive sales declined -2.4% in November, with the one- and three-year trends each deteriorating sequentially. However, sales increased in CL's largest category, Toothpaste, where the market share gap with current Nielsen market share leader P&G narrowed further. Kimberly-Clark sales declined slightly, -0.3%, in November. While the decline was an improvement sequentially, when adjusting for comparisons on a three-year basis, the trend reverted to a -3.9% decline from a +0.7% positive in October. Procter & Gamble showed an increase of +1.5% in tracked channel sales in November, a sequential improvement from +0.7% in October. However, adjusting for comparisons, it was about in line with October on a one-year basis, and a deterioration on a three-year basis. PG closed Thursday at $62.87 CLX closed Thursday at $62.30 CL closed Thursday at $78.19 KMB closed Thursday at $61.98