Thursday, February 28, 2019

GE shares rise as analysts say a major issue is 'likely contained'

General Electric shares rose in premarket trading Wednesday after Wall Street analysts said the company's "more detailed" disclosure of insurance liabilities shows less risk than last year. The disclosure came in GE's annual report, filed Tuesday evening.

GE Capital contributed $1.9 billion to GE's insurance subsidiaries in the first quarter of 2019, down from $3.5 billion in the first quarter of 2018. Additionally, GE expects GE Capital will make further contributions of $9 billion over the next five years.

This gave GE shareholders a "more detailed disclosure on the company's run-off Insurance business inside GE Capital," Merrill analyst Andrew Obin said in a note to investors, adding that those "liabilities are likely contained."

"The business has been one of the main areas of concern for investors regarding incremental capital requirements beyond already communicated $16 billion a year ago, with the positive news on only small incremental losses of $65 million in 4Q18 providing a relief rally for the stock," Obin said.

While the business is still "not without incremental risks to additional capital requirements," Obin said that GE's insurance book "is likely in a solid shape in the medium-term."

RBC Capital Markets analyst Deane Dray also pointed to what he called "enhanced disclosures on insurance liability assumptions" in GE's annual report.

"In our view, the filing marked another step forward in GE's journey towards increased transparency, simplified reporting, and clearer communications to investors," Dray said.

The lack of a change to GE's forecast of $14.5 billion in total cash outflows through 2024 was the "most material" update," Deutsche Bank's Nicole DeBlase said. That GE stuck to the forecast is important, DeBlase said, as "we had heard some concern over potential bad news around insurance obligations."

As the company's year-end quarterly report did not include a forecast for 2019 earnings, investors are now looking to GE's "highly anticipated outlook conference call" on March 14, Dray said.

WATCH:Three experts on GE's future after firing CEO John Flannery

show chapters Three experts on GE's future after firing CEO John Flannery    9:32 AM ET Tue, 2 Oct 2018 | 02:02

Saturday, February 23, 2019

The 'Father Of Value Investing' Led Me To These 5 Picks…

Value investing is one of the most popular investment strategies used today by individual investors and portfolio managers. 

Value investors seek out stocks that can be purchased at a discount to a company's "real" worth. It's an approach that's been refined over the years, but its foundation goes back roughly 85 years with the publishing of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd's college textbook, "Security Analysis."

Benjamin Graham is properly credited as one of the fathers of value investing. Disciples of his include such notables as Warren Buffett (who is reportedly the only student to receive an "A" in his class), Walter J. Schloss, Seth Klarman, and Bill Ackman.

Graham's approach was to identify stocks that were trading at a discount to their intrinsic value. And although Graham never fully explained how to determine "intrinsic" value for a stock, we do know that he felt a firm's tangible assets were a particularly important component. Other factors included earnings, dividends, financial strength, and stability. 

Graham knew that identifying such neglected, undervalued stocks was a protracted and patience-trying experience. But he also knew the rewards could be great. And so did his most famous student... 

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Buffett snapped up shares of many of the big-name banks, including Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), shortly after the bottom of the financial crisis. Shares were trading for under $10 at the time of his purchase. Today, shares are trading for around $30 -- which means Buffett is sitting on gains of more than 450%.

Margin of Safety: The Forgotten Component 
Graham believed that focusing on the intrinsic value of a business would help investors avoid fly-by-night companies and stocks caught up in market euphoria (think dot-com companies leading up to 2001). 

Surprisingly, Graham's approach wasn't necessarily designed to produce market-beating returns (at least that wasn't his intended goal). Instead, it was aimed at helping investors reduce the risk of misjudging a company, and thus the loss of capital. 

But over time, and as Buffett has repeatedly proven, this approach to the market can produce staggering returns. 

I recently used a "Graham" approach to find potential bargain stocks for my premium newsletter, Top Stock Advisor. More specifically, the screen I shared with my readers is based on Graham's "Enterprising" methodology as defined in his book, "The Intelligent Investor."

This approach seeks stocks that are trading at a discount to future earnings, and, ideally, stocks that are trading for less than their net working capital -- in essence buying companies without paying for their plants and machinery, or any tangible assets. 

Of course, it is necessary for investors to distinguish between undervalued stocks and those that are properly selling at low prices relative to value, sometimes referred to as "value-traps." In order to help avoid these types of situations, Graham suggested looking at companies that have had stable earnings over the last decade, with no years of negative earnings. 

Let's Use Ben Graham's Teachings To Screen For Picks
So that's what I looked for this week, and here's what I found...

Five Stocks That Meet Ben Graham's Value Approach value screen

While all five of these stocks are worthy candidates for further vetting, I would focus my efforts on these three...

Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE: RS) operates as a metals service center in the United States and internationally. It provides steel, aluminum, stainless, and specialty metals, as well as processing services to customers in various industries. 

The company is trading at an earnings multiple of only 10.6 times the stock price, well below the S&P 500's P/E multiple of 19.7. It's also below the company's average five-year historical P/E ratio of 16.1. The company posted double-digit sales growth in 2017 compared with 2016 and is on track to grow sales by double-digits again for 2018. The company will have reported fourth-quarter and full-year results on Feb. 21 -- just before you're probably reading this, so be sure and check out the numbers in the report. The stock also sports a dividend yield of 2.4%.

Next, I'd look at Hooker Furniture (Nasdaq: HOFT). This small-cap stock ($370 million market cap) designs, manufactures, imports, and markets residential household furniture products in the United States. 

As one of only two retail stocks that made it through the screen, that in of itself is rather remarkable. A handful of retail stocks met most of Graham's requirements until it came to positive earnings over the last decade. The financial crisis in 2009 eliminated all but Hooker Furniture and Escalade (Nasdaq: ESCA) from the screening process.

Hooker currently sports a P/E multiple of 10.5, which is again below the broader market's 19.7 P/E. While its dividend yield of 1.9% isn't anything to write home about, the company has grown sales at a compounded average growth rate of 22% over the last five years. The one analyst who covers Hooker Furniture also seems positive on the stock, as he has a price target of $43 per share, a 36% premium to its most recent closing price.

Finally, we have Escalade (Nasdaq: ESCA), another small company (market cap of only $177 million). This is a sporting goods company that manufactures, imports and distributes various sporting goods brands in a variety of sports: basketball, archery, ping-pong, fitness products, and indoor and outdoor recreation games.

The company produced $173 million in sales and $24.3 million in profits in 2018. While the sales figure was down 3% from the previous year, profits rose 14%. The stock also boasts a dividend yield of 3.9%, double the S&P 500's 1.9% yield.

Action To Take
Top 10 report image​These "Graham" stocks are a great starting point for further research. I do not -- I repeat, I do not -- recommend buying these stocks merely because they pass the criteria I laid out for this screen. 

That said, it's always worthwhile to apply the wisdom of legends like Ben Graham (or Buffett) in your research. That's what led to many of the biggest winners we've had in Top Stock Advisor over the years -- and it's also what led me to my picks in my latest report: The Top 10 Stocks for 2019.

While most investors are chasing the latest "hot tip" thinking they'll nab triple-digit gains each and every time, my readers know better. This is more like gambling, not investing. Instead, we're playing the smart game, learning from greats, and applying what we know about "what really works" to each and every pick we make. And that's what you'll find in our latest report. To learn more about it, go here.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Zillow Group Inc (ZG) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Zillow Group Inc  (NASDAQ:ZG)

Logo of jester cap with thought bubble.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Q4 2018 Earnings Conference CallFeb. 21, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET

Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Zillow Group Fourth Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. And at this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. (Operator instructions) As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded.

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr RJ Jones, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Raymond Jones -- Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Zillow Group's fourth quarter and full year 2018 financial results conference call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Zillow Group's Co-Founder and CEO, Rich Barton; Co-Founder, Spencer Rascoff; CFO, Allen Parker; Zillow Brand, President and Co-Head of Zillow Offers, Jeremy Wacksman; and President of Media & Marketplaces, Greg Schwartz.

During the call, we will make financial, forward-looking statements regarding future financial performance, operations and events. Although we believe the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee these results. We caution you to consider the risk factors described in our SEC filings, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements made on this call. The date of this call is February 21, 2019 and forward-looking statements made today are based on assumptions as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events, except as required by law.

This call is being broadcast on the Internet and is accessible through the Investor Relations section of Zillow Group's website. A recording of the call will be available later today. During the call, we will discuss GAAP and non-GAAP measures. We encourage you to read our financial results, press release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website, as it contains important information about GAAP and non-GAAP results, including reconciliation of historical non-GAAP financial measures.

In our remarks, the non-GAAP financial measure adjusted EBITDA is referred to as EBITDA, which excludes other income, depreciation and amortization expense, share-based compensation expense, impairment costs, acquisition related costs, interest expense and income taxes.

We will open the call with brief remarks, followed by live Q&A. We have posted our news release and financial tables on our Investor Relations website. There will not be a shareholder letter this quarter.

I will now turn the call over to Rich.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks RJ and thanks everyone for joining us today. I see many familiar faces on the line. And I see a number of new people who I hope to meet soon. We'll turn to your questions shortly, but I wanted to take some time here at the top, to share how I view the rapid evolution of Zillow Group down the funnel toward the transaction and why we will win the race for online real estate 2.0.

Fundamentally, we are following consumers who have been uberized and are growing to expect magic to happen with the simple push of a button. We've seen this in travel, ride hailing, car buying, shopping, streaming video and more, and the time for real estate is now. We know from the massive scale of our own monthly audience that almost everyone is in the market for a new place to live.

Since we first turned on the lights with this Zestimates back in 2006, we have been innovating to help movers turn their dreams into reality by empowering them with information and connecting them with the right real estate professionals. Yet, many of these would be buyers, sellers and rentals -- renters stay put, because the process of moving is daunting and scary.

We are taking aggressive steps to remove the inherent friction that still exists in this complex, optimacy, process heavy industry and unstick (ph) who's ready to move dreamers. This requires us to build on our strengths as the clear leader of online real estate 1.0 and move down the consumer funnel for the transaction, leveraging the power of our brands, audience, data, content technology, partnerships, service and culture of innovation.

As a result, the Zillow Group, they closed 2018 as a very different Company from where we started the year. The launch of Zillow Offers in the second quarter and the acquisition of Mortgage Lenders of America in the fourth quarter gave us the foundation to enter home buying and selling and home loan originations. Well, for Zillow -- and ultimately -- both for Zillow and ultimately to streamline the transaction for many buyers, sellers and real estate professionals.

Adding real estate transactions and eventually seamless mortgages to the Zillow Group portfolio begins to position us well for the new frontier and dramatically increases our TAM. Trying to selling homes is not a new idea for Zillow Group. Lloyd, Spencer the founding team and I founded Zillow with the gene of making buying and selling a home radically easier than it was in 2005 when we got going.

Many of us were shopping for new homes, triggered by rapid family expansion and we marveled the 10 years after the launch of the graphical web, nothing had really changed in real estate. It was right for disruption. We already had hoped read while we traveled back in the late 1990s, when we founded and led Expedia, so we could recognize a pattern.

Our earliest thesis and experiments that Zillow involved attacking the obvious problems at the point of the transaction and answering the question for buyers and sellers alike. What is that home really work?

At first, we were enamored of the purity of the auction model as the perfect price discovery mechanism. A trial and mostly error, we found that people didn't understand home auction and they certainly weren't ready to buy and sell homes on demand. However, in this process, we discovered this Zestimate, which became the backbone of our zillow.com marketplace and launched us down the road of an advertising-based business model where we added content, amassed a huge audience and made money by connecting a small subset of our audience with professionals that wanted help.

Aside from helping us build audience, quite conveniently, the Zestimates has become a key competitive advantage for Zillow Offers because almost every home seller comes to see Zestimate. Now, it's fluent and see how it ideally and eventually becomes a robotically generated live offer for your house.

Well, the market wasn't ready to embrace a live bid and ask in every home in 2005 when we used to evangelize this notion. A growing population of people certainly are today and just as we've seen in other categories, we expect this to become normalized in the not too distant future. So we've returned to the excitement of our founding mission and are now innovating rapidly on the transaction.

Zillow Offers is not just an experiment. We are already well on our way. Q4 results exceeded our expectations and we have line of sight to accelerating growth in Q1. Today we are live in seven markets and we already received one Zillow Offer request every five minutes. That's $100 million in demand value per day. Our current Zestimate is we convert 3% to 4% of the offer request we received today, which we believe could add $20 billion in annual revenue in three to five years. And ultimately deliver 200 to 300 basis points of EBITDA margin once we are at scale.

Even strong consumer response and promising metrics, we are investing in Zillow Offers for larger scale and expect to be in at least 14 markets by the end of the year. We know the mechanics and fundamentals of real estate transactions are vastly different from the media model, but these two businesses complement each other like peanut butter and chocolate.

Additionally, we are transitioning our media business models to get much closer to the transaction turning advertisers into partners, who we work closely with to satisfy the high expectations of the uberized consumer, we share.

Given that, let me now talk about Premier Agent, which is included in our Internet, Media and Technology segment. With the consumer as our Northstar, the investment in Zillow Offers complements with E (ph) not an I, for our commitment to our Premier Agents. Our PA partners are critical to Zillow Group for two key reasons.

First, we know most sellers will likely not choose to sell their house directly to us by Zillow Offers. Yet, it's our mission to get everyone seamlessly into a place they love and can afford. Our partner PA's are not only necessary for fulfillment of this mission, they're fundamental. The same heightened consumer expectations of the on-demand economy are at play in PA as well. Our challenge is to rapidly innovate on software, business model and partner selection to ensure that our consumers have a delightful experience. There are miles to go before we sleep in this arena and it's motivating.

Second, PA's are most established revenue stream and generates the cash flow that enables us to take a big swing on Zillow Offers, as well as mortgages, which by the way we view as payments just like payments are integrated into uber.

To explain what's going on in PA right now, I'll note that we made some significant changes to the PA model mid-2018, designed to improve the quality and agent response rates, and the rollout did not go as well as we intended. We allowed price to get pushed too hard with the auction-based model, and we miscalculated how important lead volume even the less transaction already nurture leads where to many of our PA's when we started more streaming and filtering.

These since some negative macro conditions caused elevated churn. We have made modifications to remedy the situation and the churn rate is normalizing. Our PA response rate to a lead is up, which is great for consumers. Our nurture leads are up, which is great for agents, and PA conversion is trending up, which is great for everyone. That said, our PA growth rate was disrupted in Q4 and it will take some time to recover from the reduced Q4 MRR, as you will see in our outlook.

At the same time, we are testing a success-based business model for PA in a few areas, in a few geographies called Flex. With Flex, we work with top-performing agents, teams and brokers who use Zillow Group software and tools to build a partnership relationship versus an advertising one where incentives are more aligned and we share the risks and rewards.

In Flex, there are no upfront fees for agents. Zillow Group has simply paid a success fee only when a Premier Agent closes the deal. Early indication are that PAs like this mutually beneficial model and we're seeing encouraging conversion rates, but it's early.

As we continue to evolve PA, we will be working closely with our agent and broker partners to do so. The PA program is currently under way, brings Zillow Group closer to the transaction and deliver a more seamless real time experience and service levels that today's on-demand consumers want and expect from the leader.

2019 will be an important transitional year as we educate current, lapsed and new PAs about the mutual benefits of the new programs. Ultimately, the shift from advertising to a partnership models increases our agent driven TAM considerably. Today, there is roughly $87 billion in commissions processed annually. But our PA revenue is just 1% of that.

We believe the value we add is much larger and expect to realize a three to five year doubling of the IMT business, which includes PA. From the beginning of Zillow Group, we've had the benefit of operating a unique triangle like executive framework that includes myself, Spencer and our co-founder Lloyd Frink.

For the first five-plus years, I was CEO and then passed the baton to Spencer. Lloyd and I have shared offices -- have shared offices in ZG HQ, Seattle and have always been active partners deeply involved in the strategy and operations of the Company.

As we've been working, toward transforming Zillow Group to be the winner in online real estate 2.0 and after careful consideration and many discussions we collectively decided it's time to turn our leadership triangle on its side and shuffle our seats.

As I return as CEO, Co-Founder Lloyd Frink has assumed my previous title of Executive Chairman and Spencer Rascoff will step out of the day-to-day, but continue to be an active and influential leader in our future success as a member of the Zillow Group Board of Directors. This is a smooth leadership transition. I just want to pause a minute to acknowledge Spencer and his tremendous work and leadership today. I personally had spent more than 15 years ago when Expedia acquired Hotwire in 2003, which Spencer also co-founded.

I knew from the moment I'm hearing, he'd be a great CEO. He has worn many hats at Zillow Group including CMO, CFO those were at the same time, by the way we say that a boatload and marketing expense in our early years and then COO, before taking over as CEO from me in 2010. He is an indefatigable and committed leader and a huge culture carrier, under his CEO leadership we went from private to public, we grew revenue from $30 million to $1.3 billion, we acquired 15 companies, we grew from 200 people to 4,000 employees, we repeatedly won Best Places to Work awards and our brands have become household names.

It's hard for me to express the depth of my gratitude for his innumerable contributions and what is still yet to come. Thank you, Spencer. I know Spencer wants to say a few words.

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

Thank you, Rich. You're right I played a lot of roles here at Zillow Group and I'm excited now, for my next one. We are at a transformative time at ZG the world is finally ready for the seamless real estate transaction and no Company has better positioned to deliver. Rich, Lloyd and I have been partners since the company's founding in 2005 and now feels like the right time to turn this triangle of partnership on its side. When I look at the Company, we've built during my nine years as CEO I am incredibly proud. Our team and culture are world-class and helping Rich to continue to build that culture will be among my top priorities as a Board of Director.

I'm grateful for the relationships I've built with our employees and for their trust in me. I've also built relationships with many of you from the investment community and I'm grateful to our shareholders who help support our Company's growth so far. I will remain a large shareholder of Zillow Group and I look forward to helping support the Company's next stage of growth from the boardroom. Thanks to all of you, back to you, Rich.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for everything Spencer and I look forward to both of our new roles as we plot the course ahead. This is an incredible time to put my CEO hat back on, Zillow Group is like a start up again, but are really well positioned one with $1.3 billion in revenue, a huge engaged audience and the leading brands in the industry, including Trulia, StreetEasy, HotPads, Out East, dotloop and our flagship Zillow.

Excitement runs high at Zillow Group right now. We are reconnecting with our original mission and we sense how meaningful this opportunity is for consumers, partners and shareholders alike. I'm excited to talk more with you about all the exciting things under way at Zillow Group and the opportunities we see today and on the horizon.

Before we open up for questions, I want to reintroduce Allen Parker who joined as Zillow Group's CFO in November from Amazon, where he spent 13 years and was most recently Vice President of Finance for Amazon Device in that store. This is the first ZG earnings call for both of us so go easy, but I thought it might be helpful to offer a little perspective on our share repurchase earnings and financial reporting, you'll see in our press release that in addition to Q1 outlook we included our current target Zestimates of our business looking three to five years. We feel that this time, it is important to share our view from where we sit today, given the investments we're making.

Also with me today are Jeremy Wacksman who wears several hats, including Co-President of Zillow Offers and Greg Schwartz, who heads our Internet Media & Technology Segment, which includes PA, rentals and mortgages. I've been working closely with both of them for over 10 years.

With that operator, we'll open up to questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Ron Josey with JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Ronald Josey -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

Great, thanks for taking the question and Rich, welcome back to the CEO seat although I know you've always been involved and Spencer glad to see you're still be on the Board here. So, I want to ask maybe, question for you, Rich and then for Greg. Just Rich, as you return to CEO role and what is incredibly involved -- evolving company across IMT in offers, in mortgages and I know you said 2019 is another year of transformation investment, but just perhaps can you talk just how you're focused approach might be a little different than in the past and then Greg on the Core Premier Agent business great to hear response rates, nurture leads and conversion rates roll up and improving with 4.1, but obviously growth is slowing here and it's very different in the past so just wanted to hear your take on what keeps you excited in the broader premier agent opportunity going forward here. Thank you.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you very much. So from a strategic perspective and from a organizational perspective, we don't expect much change. The reason we kind of turned this triangle is because I have a particular pension for and attracted two big swings and we are really in the process of remaking Zillow Group right now and formulating a new mission. One we're looking at the sky, looking at the moon and saying, we want to land there, we want to walk on that thing. It takes a really big audacious goal be had to get an organization to transform itself. I've been lucky to be part of transformations like that earlier in my career I have been fortunate enough to be on the Board of Netflix since it was private and I see lots of parallels here as we take Zillow Group into the next phase with what we saw at Netflix when we moved from DVDs by mail to streaming and then to originals, it's that kind of change and so given all that and given this great big new challenge Spencer, Lloyd and I in conjunction with the Board of Directors all thought we rotate this triangle and put the guy in this quarter back who really loves, who really loves taking these big swings and leading these big efforts. So that I think that is the primary inspiration, send it over to Greg.

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

Hi, there. Greg here. So the question from raising program and why we're optimistic which we are. Demand is strong it has ever been for this business we will sell more an MRR this year we have ever. Now by the nature of MRR business, which is why the forecast is later than you'd like and we like the nature of an MRR business as we dig a hole with elevated churn, you got to fill it up before we get to grow on a more normal level. So that's what we are actively doing today sure like Rich mentioned is coming back to normal levels have it declared victory quite yet on that but it get through another month or so we're feeling really good about what we're hearing from our customers, from demand, from the moderating business model and then like you shared the fundamental thing we're trying to achieve in the fourth version of Premier Agent PA 4, was to enable this OnDemand more joyful, more predictable transaction experience for our consumers and we're doing that by achieving these levels of high connection between high real transaction between agent and consumer. This flowing through an improved CSAC, customer satisfaction scores that we track very closely, we're seeing very significant improvement of customer satisfaction in our computed rate of transactions so lead to transaction conversion is up.

So figures are looking pretty good Allen and I are declaring victory quite yet we want to be conservative in the financial projections that we're laying out here. In one of the year ahead.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Brad Berning with Craig-Hallum. Your line is now open.

Bradley Berning -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group, LLC -- Analyst

Good afternoon everybody. In JV, or why you'd be the right person to target this to given the $20 billion three to five year target for the Homes business, can you talk about what you guys are seeing on Zillow Offers that gives you the confidence to talk about a target like that and how fast can you grow these markets and what kind of investments you want to be making in '19 and '20 given the opportunity for a land grab in this emerging market competitively. The follow-up is maybe to Greg the related seller leads that come out of this maybe you can talk about some of the initial roll-outs that you're seeing out of the Zillow offered leads kind of attach rates economics you know, how you're thinking about, how big this business can be relative to that $20 billion type target?

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. This is Jeremy, I'll take the office question and I think Greg can handle the rest of things.

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

Yeah, I mean, as Rich talked about, we see just a massive demand from sellers, I think he quoted $100 million in value, every day, that's a request every five minutes. And that's just in the seven markets we're in, let alone the dozen plus we plan to be in later this year.

So, I think we see a very large potential price and what we really see is incredibly strong consumer response to the offering that demand signal comes from every seller starting on Zillow checking out Zestimate and asking for help with how to sell. Zillow Offers is obviously a fabulous way to do that and as we scale the business that's what we see that three to five year target around. That's also what we see the listing opportunity around.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I'll say, that is correct. Yes. Pretty, compelling long-term opportunity as seller leads. It's part of how we get to $2 billion and in Premier Agent revenue and IMT revenue in three to five years we experimenting and in the investment phase right now.

We got, we got some miles to walk to figure out their compelling offer to a consumer, to a seller that will ignite you to get on the phone and engaged with Premier Agent. So it is not material. Its not a material component of our 2019 forecast and we think will develop over time nicely.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Maria Ripps with Canaccord. Your line is now open.

Maria Ripps -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Allen, you're the newest person in the room. Welcome to Zillow. As you take on the CFO role, curious if you could share your thoughts about your objectives and goals. And in relation to your long-term targets. Can you share with us what do we focused on in '19 and beyond. It would be great to hear, what you're prioritizing? Thank you.

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

Great. This is Allen, and this is -- as my first call, I did want to take just a big opportunity to say really excited to be here at Zillow Group. At this moment in time a lot going on, and I feel like that, I have a lot to offer. So very excited. With respect to your question. I'd start out by saying that, I feel like the current position we're in the opportunity ahead of us reminds me a little bit of the early days of Amazon. When I joined and we were just starting to increase our investment levels in two big ideas, we were not sure how big they'd be. It was AWS and it was devices which I eventually went to be the finance person on. And I saw firsthand the importance of rallying the organization around these new high growth opportunities without losing sight of maintaining the core performance of your current business, which helps fund those big swings.

So when I talk about specific priorities, I'll call out three. My first one, it gets a little bit to your long-term question. Is focused on ensuring we are building good processes and plans on scale in our home and mortgages business to achieve these long-term targets. This includes developing input driven models to both size the opportunity and to manage and monitor our progress. It also helps looking farther out to identify the key innovation and processes required to reach the scale and then with respect to our core businesses and focusing on execution and leverage growth. To achieve the long-term targets we need to prioritize our investments, digest where possible and most importantly reaccelerate growth.

And just real quickly, the third point is really around that leverage and costs. We need to increase our muscle mass around controllable spend. This is important for all of our businesses, both to leverage the core, as well as we move into lower margin transactional businesses. We're going to be building processes and initiating actions to go after this discretionary or controllable spend, in fact building that muscle today.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Mark Mahaney with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Mark Mahaney -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay, great. Rich, welcome back. Nice to hear your voice. I'm almost tempted to ask you about online travel, but I won't. I love the use of...

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

You know, a lot about it, Mark.

Mark Mahaney -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Yeah, I love the use of the term uberized in the financial press release, I think that's the first, I'm assuming that was your idea and at the idea of removing friction from real estate from residential real estate and maybe from commercial at some point I think is a very noble idea, it's an extremely difficult idea. I know you referred to be had before just talk big picture about how long do you think it'll take to remove substantial amount of friction. I mean there's obviously an enormous amount in there, there and this is kind of why you're going into the Homes business, but that's the opportunity, but just talk about the timeline for removing friction. And Spencer, I got to asked you one last question before we lose you.

Let's see. The question would be the unit economics of the Homes business. Do you think is it? I don't know if it's too early to tell this, but are they're -- can the unit economics work just as a stand-alone Homes business or does it only really work when you're able to do that and cross-sell other things title and mortgages in other words just homes is that an attractive business on its own. Or is it really work when you bring in synergies with other, with other revenue opportunities and profit opportunities, and thank you both.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

You want to start.

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

Sure. Hey, Mark. I am going to pot that one to Jeremy. Objectively, but as a director and major shareholder I anxiously await Jeremy's answer after. Jeremy?

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

The answer is yes. (Technical Difficulty)

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

-- stand-alone basis and if you look at the three to five year target, we put out there 5,000 a month at a $20 billion annualized run rate then at scale. you look at 200, 300 basis points of EBITDA margin.

That's on the core business, that's before, what you might call adjacencies or listening. So mortgage opportunities.

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

And the bigger. We get the bigger we get there and the more density we have there. The more we can drive expenses down it. Allen, was always talking about. And that actually feeds back in to increasing demand because we can -- with the lower fee. So there is a really interesting virtuous this I guess this is a virtuous cycle of sorts, but it's like traditional scale economies they are very strong tradition scale economies, we believe, but back to your original question mark, That's why we're so excited because we found a short circuit. We found we found a way to, you know it's not magical, it's going to take a lot of time, its going to take a lot of investment that I hope you you'll make with me. But we found a short circuit from a consumer perspective, all of this anxiety that the seller had that Susan the seller had about selling here house how long is it going to take what price.

Am I going to get all these people walking through my stuff like in my house my kids are. It's like this kind of personal emotional invasion uncertainty, it just means that there's all this pent-up demand and when we first got going with Zillow Offers, which was started out as a small experiment we were inundated with consumer demand.

And so this is it, we found a short circuit. So, yes, it's going to be hard. You're right. And I understand people's skepticism, but we have found one really interesting path over this CASM of despair. Okay.

Another path, however, right next to it is fully uberizing and automating the guided path. So in, we know a lot of people won't, a lot of people don't do Zillow. All right. But we still want to get everybody to that better place. And so, Greg and his team and the product teams are hard at work modernizing that process finally.

We are super motivated and we have line of sight to how we're going to do that now simply because we're so large and now we're getting into the transactions results. So I'm quite yeah, it's a big swing for sure, but you know I'm pretty confident, I see it as fairly control downside you know, on this, because the existing business we have is a fantastic business and we have a lot of growth to go even in that business as a stand-alone business. And so we have this unbelievable option on a giant TAM in the form of Zillow and mortgages.

Mark Mahaney -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Rich. Thanks Spencer. And congrats to you, both.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Mark.

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

Thank you, Mark.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from John Campbell with Stephens. Your line is now open.

John Campbell -- Stephens, Inc. -- Analyst

Hey, Rich and Allen looking forward to working to you guys, and Spencer congrats on a great run. But on the Offers business. You guys have talked to that kind of rapid adoption, I mean that's been super impressive you're getting or request every five minutes. I think you guys said last that you touched about 35% or so the share in the Phoenix market you got that in a couple of months, but just thinking about the long-term opportunity in adoption curve.

Do you guys think it's unreasonable to assume that I don't know one day nearly every home seller comes you guys first just to kind of get that risk free offering, get a sense for the trade off around selling direct versus going to the traditional route?

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

This is Jeremy. I'll take that one. No, we don't think that's crazy. As Rich talked about the short circuit that's kind of what we mean. I mean the Zestimate is that place where every seller is already starting and now right next to that Zestimates is to get an Offer, but so now they have two options, and -- well now they have three options with that as well as an agent. So that's really what makes this thing go as every seller is scared to get started and they're starting here and they want to know how to sell and that's what makes these two businesses works so well together is regardless of that we buy house via Zillow Offers or we help them was a great agent, we're helping himself, we're helping them get across that chasm Rich talked about.

John Campbell -- Stephens, Inc. -- Analyst

Okay, and just related to that. Can you guys maybe give us a sense. I don't know if you can size this up, but just an idea about the ramp or kind of build up to sell side revenue and listing revs over the next three to five years?

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. We don't have, we don't, it's not time to give you formal guidance for the next three to five year sell side ramp, like I said, we see something pretty compelling here it's part of how we get to this three to five year doubling of IMT is an important contributor. We got some invention do this here to figure out what really delight the consumer and get some on the phone with Premier Agent, we've got -- I promise we are working pretty hard on this and we got some pretty compelling idea. We got to get done before we're going to, before we going to forecast it.

John Campbell -- Stephens, Inc. -- Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks guys.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan McKeveny with Zelman & Associates. Your line is now open.

Ryan McKeveny -- Zelman & Associates -- Analyst

Hi, thanks a lot. Just a follow-up on that last question related to the Homes business and just kind of size of the opportunity that you think about, I guess, the numbers you mentioned in the long-term targets its 5,000 homes a month would be 60,000 a year and I think you mentioned the 3% to 4% conversion rate, which I believe the math implies something like 25% or 30% of all existing home sales would kind of start with you guys having the opportunity that did. Is that kind of the rough math that you think about and on that 3% to 4% conversion, what's the thought process, or how do you get to that being the right level of conversion?

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Yeah, this is, Jeremy. Well, two things on that. That conversion rate goes up over time. I mean, right now our demand is to -- as Rich pointed out, we're offering on a subset of those requests while we're constrained. I mean, our biggest constraint right now is market roll-out feet on the street, the ability to make offers on more homes. So you can expect this conversion rates to change as we get the scale and so that's part of how that math works to get to what will be eventually a large percentage of homeowners making request on their house and seeing if this can work for them.

Ryan McKeveny -- Zelman & Associates -- Analyst

Yeah, there's one conversion rate that tips above. The 3% to 4% which is how many people raise their hand and ask for an offer?

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

Right. So you know, that's, that's a huge lever you know indications are that it's very popular and as prices going down certainly more and more people will raise their hand and take the convenience of over the alternative and I just as -- that's what I'm talking now.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Jason Helfstein -- Oppenheimer & Co. -- Analyst

Thanks, two questions is back on Premier Agent, and I've been on two earnings call, so I apologize if some of this is covered, but with respect to kind of where we are has churn kind of bottomed out from the Premier Agent relaunched and then how are you guys thinking about macro housing effecting kind of the guidance for Premier Agent. Obviously, we heard, we went talking about more optimism about the market, but obviously team up -- we are up fourth quarter.

So, if you just help us understand how much of it specific to the relaunch of Premier Agent versus macro and then, obviously you've been very vocal about homes has there been any pushback from Premier Agents about your expansion at the homes and how you do anything that you are still aligned with them versus competing with them, et cetera. Thanks.

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

Sure, I'll grab that. It's Greg. So quick one, yeah, in terms -- in terms to normal. We have not enough runway yet to declare victory on it, but we feeling pretty positive, that was the first question. I think your second question is...

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Agents and home...

Ryan McKeveny -- Zelman & Associates -- Analyst

On macro..

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

And pushback?

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

No, pushback. Hearing of push, our Premier Agents want to partner with us in Zillow Offers. They want to represent us some transactions, they want to help us invest on several listings -- listings drive a lot of towers authority in local markets and they're looking for opportunity. I haven't had a real significant pushback beyond those who want us to move a little faster, so they can get all this course and ride it, our relationships with Premier Agents are warm inner scaling and is dedicated to building those partnerships is been ever happened, and it's well received -- the question is how we work it? Undoubtedly, appreciation is slowing in many, many markets, almost all markets. An inventory is increasing, but volume isn't we still need more homes for first time homebuyers, the builders still need to bring more lots online and do affordably. They're pushing the margin there. So, we are not seeing headwinds from -- in the peer business from macro in 2019.

Ryan McKeveny -- Zelman & Associates -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Lloyd Walmsley with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Lloyd Walmsley -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Thanks, I have two. I guess, the first one, for Rich and then the second one, I'll jump off. So, Rich, I'm wondering if you see a path for Zillow Offers to ultimately shift back to becoming more of an asset-light marketplace where you're less involved as a principal and more platform taking on a fee, similar to how the business kind of started and maybe give us some more broad color on kind of how you see that side of the business.

And then the second one, would just be on the Homes segment. I was curious how you guys see the competitive dynamics in the industry structure there ultimately impacting margins there I would assume most people who would like to get an offer on the most valuable asset, they own look to get one from multiple platforms, which maybe drive competition in ways that aren't similar to the core media business. So, the question would just be, how do you see competitive dynamics in the Homes segment evolving and how do you see the durability of the unit economics in a competitive market?

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Hi, Lloyd. Yeah, I'll start. We're not really contemplating the marketplace model right now. I don't know that -- when Amazon got going they were contemplating the third-party sellers model either, so I don't want to close down strategic possibility in the future. Job number one is to get scale. And to get the scale economies working, we think our access to capital will be unrivaled and so we think our access to customers will be unrivaled from an acquisition cost perspective, we think we have a lot of built in advantages here I get your points about, Hey, isn't money just money.

But I think in any industry you look when you think a product is just a product, you realize that brands matter and trust matters and especially with such a big transaction people want to work with the brand and a Company they know and trust and love. And so we're going at this, you know, without the intention of going to a marketplace model on this particular thing.

I'll add one more thing and that is I'm mainly excited about the optionality that has opened up as we head toward the transaction. Okay. There is a flourishing of creativity and innovation at the real estate transaction right now, both the rental transaction and the home transactions you see lots of activity and start doing all kinds of things that when you hear the pitch, you like, what? You're -- we work for residential, we'll buy the house, we'll turn into an Airbnb side and will lower your monthly payment in rent because we're doing turning into Airbnb its tonnes of really -- there's tons of really interesting innovation happening around real estate right now and finally, and one of the wonderful things about our move into Zillow Offers is that it opens up a world of interesting possibilities for how to innovate at the transaction to satisfy the needs of what the seller and the buyer, the renter and the mortgage shopper wants. So I believe this is not the end of innovation, this is the beginning of innovation around this concept.

I don't remember the second part, I think it was at a...

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

Dynamic..

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

No, its on homes. This is Jen. It's another flavor on what Rich said the advantages we think we have that consumers will allow also the advantages that we think will allow us to rationally provide a profitable offering that's the strongest, right. The brand trust we have, the access to audience cheaper than anybody else, that audience then allowing us to resale and reduce whole times, the integration and internalization of mortgages and ancillary. Those same components that we think the consumer wants are also then the things that build the network effects to provide the strongest offering at a rational point.

Lloyd Walmsley -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

(Multiple Speaker).

Operator

Thank you. Our next question -- our next question comes from Justin Patterson with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Justin Patterson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Great, thank you. From the Offers perspective, could you help provide more commentary in terms of how aggressively you're thinking of investing in that opportunity and the cost getting toward scale, you did guide to a large Q1 loss in that business, but referring from commenting on annual revenue and EBITDA trends for Homes.

And then secondly, I wanted to tease out your commentary on Zestimates being a key advantage in the Offers space. Historically, as we look at Zillow there tends to be a large gap between your Zestimates and where less prices are market-by-market. So, curious what you need to do there to refine that if that's true, we can to be a driver for Offers? Thanks.

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, this is Allen. I'll take the first part of your question. So we are -- we did guide in Q1, the EBITDA margin level that range from negative 38% to negative 28.7%, we are not providing guidance out past that, but you can compare that range EBITDA margin to Q4 actuals, which was negative 56.9, but we will be invested mode for a while and we're going to grow as fast as we can. Jeremy, had mentioned some constraints as we scale we think this is important business and it's important to be there at first. So, we believe the most accurate homes there's only one quarter out, which is why we are only providing one quarter of guidance. The second question you had is respect to the gap between the...

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Zestimates, well -- we could...

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

Okay.

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

That's a huge task.. (Multiple Speakers)

Justin Patterson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Zestimates accuracy. You basically saying Zestimates are inaccurate. So how can you base (inaudible) up as Zestimates?

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. And you'll see us in every market price based on the Zestimates and based on a local market opinion, based on a pricing underwriting model and then ultimately based on visiting the home with the seller. And so, Zestimates can be a great starting point in that conversation, it can also be a challenge and starting with the conversations, but the jurisdiction is specific for each house end up being the conversation around price discovery.

Justin Patterson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Channel (ph) are to stand now..

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

And brag on Zestimate. I don't want people to think that Zestimate is inaccurate. The Zestimate is outstanding.

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

For sure, I mean approaching 4% median absolute percent error, it's the most accurate AVM (ph) out there in the country -- across the board and it is a fantastic tool for us to price off, and first thing we can start off.

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Yeah. And you can imagine our motivation for accuracy on this Zestimate now is just ratcheted up a couple notches as well, because we're putting real money -- we're putting real money into this and that we can really -- this is a dream, this is just an idea that I'm holding out here, but if we can literally turn that into a live offer or near live offer on every home in the country updated every night, well that's like a big deal, but that would be a big deal now we may never get there, that's just to be hogged (ph), but it is a great design goal.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Heath Terry with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Heath Terry -- Goldman Sachs & Co. -- Analyst

Great. Just curious on a couple of maybe more immediate things around the Premier Agent business, given all the fluctuations that you've seen in conversion and lead improvement, and lead generation as well as pricing, what's your latest thoughts on sort of where ROI is, or is trending for agents in the program and then as you think about priorities for this year, where is marketing to drive visits, I know visit is a metric that can have a lot of meetings with, particularly as the business evolves, but wondering how you should -- or how we should be thinking about the growth do you expect that the top of the funnel as defined by that?

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

Sure, I'll start. This Greg. So profits in ROI for agents remained strong in the system. I -- we tell that the following question is why we do have elevated churn in the fourth quarter and what we found is the basic principle psychology is nor I am making profit, but what was I making before and what is now occurring?

We pushed price little hard over 25% last year and even though many of our customers had significant profit in the models as cost structures in their lives and in their businesses that had assumes relatively stable levels of profits and they were disrupted by poor building that trust with them, that many Premier Agents coming back. And is a lot of profit left in the system, giving you a specific number I think is unwise. It varies a great deal by the business practices of our customers and that's what -- that will help us address and normalize and that's the point of this investment inter Flex test.

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

This is Jeremy. I'll take the advertising question. I think we gave visits up 14% on the full year and I think the peak you count was like almost $200 million and $195 million for the year across the brands. That's obviously as Rich mentioned a bunch of our brands really achieving significance and growing share will continue to do that this year and you'll continue to see our leverage on our ad spend as we've been doing and you'll continue to see that pay dividends on top line growth, but as we hit larger and larger numbers, we're focusing as much on engagements and on converting those people to do more and more things as we go from just to the media business to multiple businesses and so, as much of the focus of the dollar is about reframing and giving penetration as it is top line growth.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Tom White with D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open.

Philip Bugay -- D.A. Davidson & Co. -- Analyst

Thanks, this is actually Philip Bugay on for Tom. I wanted to touch back on the feet on the street aspect of the Homes segment. Could you just talk about how you're looking at the capabilities in Zillow Offers particularly with regards to purchasing and turning the Homes round and any update you can give us regarding your efforts and scaling up their capacity in either inspection or renovation and also interesting big learnings you can share about the process or any areas where you think you still need to improve? Thanks.

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Yeah, this is, Jeremy. I'll take that one. I would say the limit on our growth is our operational (Technical Difficulty)

Operator

(Operator Instructions). You may resume.

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Hey, this is Jeremy, I'll start to answer again, I'm not sure, we got cut off apologies for the line drop. On homes, the limit or on our growth is just our operational capabilities, our feet on the street, I mean, we got to build this business our market at the time with a lot of market specific staff and then on what we've learned. I mean what we've learned is that it's early and we're excited every market we go into has its own nuances, every home has its own nuances and so, as we're building up the capabilities to service the immense demand we're seeing, we're excited to share more with you guys about what we've learned but it's early.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Tom Champion with Cowen. Your line is now open.

Thomas Champion -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

Okay, great. First off, Spencer, congrats on a great tenure. Best of luck. Guys, two questions, please. On the 140 homes you sold in 4Q, it look -- it looks like there were 170 purchased in, in 3Q. And could you just comment on that result in whether you guys are tracking to the 90 date turn time in Homes.

And then second, can you talk a little bit about just the roll out of PA 4.1. I think there was 30% of the footprint that was going direct to 4.1. How did that let the rollout go? Thank you.

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Yeah, this is Jeremy. I'll take homes and Greg will take PA. So on the inventory, you're right, we saw 141 sold in 4Q. And obviously as we're scaling, you're going to continue to see that inventory level grow because we're going to buy more each month and we're selling from the previous cohorts. So it's going be hard for you to model hold time on a vintage basis, we're really pleased what we're seeing. Obviously we underwrite every home into its own case of whole time and as we're investing in scale, we're being as aggressive as we can there, but we're pleased what we're seeing so far and you should expect to see fluctuations in that as we scale and as we're solving for scale and for getting into more markets, and then Greg on PA.

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

Yeah, have just put 4.1. So, 4.1 is 100% deployed today that was those improvements the Premier Agent program which were principally around allowing our Premier Agents in teams to opt to take their nurture leads, that leads didn't qualify for lot of connection. Those will push live in the fourth quarter and that quelled and then concerned about volume and then that's why we're seeing this more moderated rate of churn and improvement in the business in line for business. So, 4.1 is fully deployed and we're looking forward to what's next, and what's next principally is a focus on reiterating on Flex and some of the exciting progress we're making there and which isn't yet in the model for the year for 2019, but we got to learn a lot and I think make a lot of progress.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session for today's call. I would now like to turn the call back over to Rich Barton, CEO for any further remarks.

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks again for your time today folks. As we discussed, we are in the middle of a critical transformation that is reshaping our Company and redefining the rules of real estate as we know them. By moving into transactions, Zillow Group will cover the entire consumer home shopping funnel top to bottom, giving today's on-demand consumers a full spectrum of options to shop, engage, transact on their terms.

By transitioning our relationship with agents from advertisers to real partners we better align our mutual goals and incentives, and cooperate to delight our shared customers. This all makes us well positioned to unstick (ph) those shoppers ready to follow their dreams and getting into a place they love and can afford.

Finally, just to restate, I know Zillow Group's aggressive expansion has not just evolved our business model, it's affected your ex-models. We've added a high revenue, low margin business that requires large investment and distributed operations to have proven high margin media business that you know and love. And that can be unsettled especially when our execution on the core business has been bumpy. It was unsettling for us to, initially. But, we came to believe the prize is quite large and further it was a strategic necessity. This is where consumers are heading and will ultimately get what they want with or without us. We decided to lead them there.

Can you imagine if Netflix had just ignored streaming. You can probably tell, I'm excited. I hope you are too. Thank you, in advance for keeping an open mind and for giving us a chance to show you what we see, we value your counsel and I look forward to our upcoming conversations.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program. And you may all disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.

Duration: 57 minutes

Call participants:

Raymond Jones -- Vice President of Investor Relations

Rich Barton -- Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Spencer Rascoff -- Board of Director

Ronald Josey -- JMP Securities -- Analyst

Greg Schwartz -- President, Media and Marketplace

Bradley Berning -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group, LLC -- Analyst

Maria Ripps -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Allen Parker -- Chief Financial Officer

Mark Mahaney -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

John Campbell -- Stephens, Inc. -- Analyst

Jeremy Wacksman -- Chief Marketing Officer

Ryan McKeveny -- Zelman & Associates -- Analyst

Jason Helfstein -- Oppenheimer & Co. -- Analyst

Lloyd Walmsley -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Justin Patterson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Heath Terry -- Goldman Sachs & Co. -- Analyst

Philip Bugay -- D.A. Davidson & Co. -- Analyst

Thomas Champion -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

More ZG analysis

Transcript powered by AlphaStreet

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Contrasting Mirati Therapeutics (MRTX) & Clearside Biomedical (CLSD)

Mirati Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MRTX) and Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ:CLSD) are both medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and valuation.

Valuation & Earnings

Get Mirati Therapeutics alerts:

This table compares Mirati Therapeutics and Clearside Biomedical’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio
Mirati Therapeutics N/A N/A -$70.42 million ($2.78) -25.82
Clearside Biomedical $340,000.00 136.57 -$58.97 million ($2.33) -0.62

Clearside Biomedical has higher revenue and earnings than Mirati Therapeutics. Mirati Therapeutics is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Clearside Biomedical, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Mirati Therapeutics and Clearside Biomedical’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets
Mirati Therapeutics N/A -46.80% -42.71%
Clearside Biomedical N/A -142.46% -102.76%

Risk & Volatility

Mirati Therapeutics has a beta of 2.14, indicating that its stock price is 114% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clearside Biomedical has a beta of -1.3, indicating that its stock price is 230% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Mirati Therapeutics and Clearside Biomedical, as reported by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score
Mirati Therapeutics 0 1 9 0 2.90
Clearside Biomedical 1 2 5 0 2.50

Mirati Therapeutics presently has a consensus price target of $60.00, suggesting a potential downside of 16.41%. Clearside Biomedical has a consensus price target of $12.71, suggesting a potential upside of 776.85%. Given Clearside Biomedical’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Clearside Biomedical is more favorable than Mirati Therapeutics.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

97.9% of Mirati Therapeutics shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.6% of Clearside Biomedical shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.9% of Mirati Therapeutics shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 15.4% of Clearside Biomedical shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Mirati Therapeutics Company Profile

Mirati Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage oncology company, develops targeted therapeutics to address the genetic, epigenetic, and immunological promoters of cancer. The company is involved in developing sitravatinib, an oral spectrum-selective kinase inhibitor, which is in Phase II clinical for the treatment of solid tumor; and in Phase Ib clinical trial to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NCSLC) patients with CBL, chromosome 4q12, and RET genetic alterations, as well as mocetinostat, an orally administered spectrum-selective Class 1 histone deacetylase inhibitor that is in Phase II clinical trial in combination with durvalumab for the treatment of patients with NSCLC. Its preclinical development stage product candidate include KRAS G12C inhibitor program to address mutations and tumors. The company has a collaboration and license agreement with BeiGene, Ltd. to develop manufacture and commercialize sitravatinib. It also has collaboration with Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Merck & Co., Inc.; Array BioPharma, Inc.; and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to develop and commercialize products. Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. is headquartered in San Diego, California.

Clearside Biomedical Company Profile

Clearside Biomedical, Inc., a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company, develops pharmacological therapies to treat blinding diseases of the eye. It is developing suprachoroidal injection of CLS-TA, a proprietary preservative-free formulation of the corticosteroid triamcinolone acetonide, which is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of macular edema associated with non-infectious uveitis; suprachoroidal injection of CLS-TA and a concomitant intravitreal injection of Eylea, an inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor that is in Phase III clinical trial to treat macular edema associated with retinal vein occlusion; and suprachoroidal injection of CLS-TA alone or together with intravitreal injection of Eylea that is in phase II clinical trial for diabetic macular edema. The company also engages in the development of therapies in various areas, such as gene therapy for inherited retinal disorders, neovascular age-related macular degeneration, and other ocular diseases. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Monday, February 18, 2019

Sex, Coke, and Video Streaming

In this episode of the Market Foolery podcast, host Chris Hill and Motley Fool contributor Jim Mueller analyze those stories and answer the timeless question, "How many stocks should someone have in their portfolio?" Plus, they discuss a survey about Americans' attitudes toward Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), including how many would choose Netflix over sex.

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Feb. 14, 2019.

Chris Hill: Happy Valentine's Day! It's Thursday, February 14. Welcome to MarketFoolery! I'm Chris Hill. Joining me in studio, Jim Mueller. Thanks for being here!

Jim Mueller: Hey, Chris! Thanks for having me!

Hill: Thanks for being my podcast Valentine!

Mueller: [laughs] Anytime!

Hill: We're going to dip into the Fool mailbag. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is getting serious about video streaming, we're going to dig into that. Also a survey. We'll get to the survey.

We've got to start with Big Red. Shares of Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) are having their worst day in over a decade. Fourth-quarter results for Coke were about what Wall Street was expecting. The guidance for 2019 was not, and shares are down 8%. Look, we've talked about plenty of other companies that have had worse drops in a single day. This is Coca-Cola. This is sort of the steady blue chip. 8% -- I was about to say huge, it's not huge. It's a big drop.

Mueller: For a company of that size, definitely. I'm going to let the guidance alone. It is what it is. It's just basically whether what management says agrees with what Wall Street is expecting. Wall Street is basically guessing what's going to come, even though many companies do try to massage what those expectations are. 

Just some of the numbers here. On an organic basis -- that is, taking out the effects of foreign currency translations and a bunch of the refranchising they've been doing with their bottlers -- revenue grew about 5%. A little bit on volume, 1%. Quite a bit, 4% on price increases. As far as pricing power goes, Coke still has it.

Hill: They do still have it. We talk from time to time about companies that, when they are going over their earnings, sometimes they're trying to massage the numbers in such a way where you're like, "Oh, come on!" In the case of the foreign currency, lest anyone thinks otherwise -- because Coca-Cola is as quintessential an American brand as there is -- most of their money is coming from outside the U.S., so that's a material thing for them.

Mueller: Right. I like that their operating income was up 7% ex currency. Cash flow from operations came in at $7.3 billion for the full year. Six billion in free cash flow. Both of those up substantially over the previous year. Just from the numbers, it looks like it's doing pretty good. 

They're gaining market share. Their soft drinks gained 2%, driven a lot by their zero-sugar product, Coke Zero. The only category that was down was the juice, dairy, and plant stuff, down 1%. But water, enhanced water, sports drinks up 3%. Tea and coffee up 1%. All those are good numbers for Coke. They've been buying things. They just invested $15 million into Dirty Lemon.

Hill: Never heard of it, but I like the name.

Mueller: [laughs] They have interesting products. More about fitness and beauty drinks. For instance, they have a product called Collagen, and it's a drink that has collagen in it. It's meant to be a skin moisturizer, skin revitalizer kind of drink. Coca-Cola said, "OK, we'll take a leap on you." [laughs] Just last month, they bought a Nigerian juice company that had been founded in 1980 for an undisclosed amount called Chi Limited. 

They're still expanding. This is a part of a big trend in big drink. PepsiCo bought SodaStream last year to get more of their sparkling water stuff. I saw an interesting stat this morning from S&P Global Market Intelligence. They showed the number of mergers and purchases of assets over the years. Back in 2009, there were about 65 for the entire year. Last year, there were over 130 of these things. So, you get a brand going, you get some sales, and Coke or Pepsi or Dr Pepper -- whatever it's called nowadays...

Hill: Dr Pepper Snapple, is still called that? I don't know.

Mueller: It used to be. Didn't they add another?

Hill: They added another one. 

Mueller: Anyway, all the big guys are still, just like big beer, going after the small ones, trying to do a lot of their growth. 

Hill: You think back to last summer. Coke had a bigger acquisition with Costa Coffee, about $5 billion. I don't want to just put this on Wall Street analysts. I don't own shares of Coca-Cola any longer, but I did for a good stretch of time. It's almost as though shareholders are saying, "OK, this is good, but we need to start seeing results." If they're going to get material returns out of coffee sales in the U.K. and Europe, that's great. But it's almost like, "We need that sooner rather than later."

Mueller: It'll come when it comes. Consumer tastes are changing. Many people, at least here in the States, are going more for the energy drinks and the healthy drinks, so Coke has gotten away from the sugar. They're getting double-digit growth in their Coke Zero. That's good for them. 

Hill: Do you think, at any point, they need to consider going the route of Pepsi? Pepsi owns Frito-Lay...

Mueller: You mean snacks?

Hill: Yeah. Or has that ship sailed? Have they decided, on an institutional level: "We had that chance a long time ago. We decided not to do it." For a long time, it was working for Coca-Cola. But over the last five years, you'd rather be owning shares of Pepsi than Coke.

Mueller: As far as Coke goes, I'd rather that they stick to their knitting rather than getting into something like any sort of packaged foods. Pepsi has a lock on salty snacks. Where is Coke going to go with that? Sweet snacks? Everyone's going away from sweet. Packaged goods? That's having problems of its own. 

Hill: Let's move on to Apple, which is getting ready to launch a new video streaming service. This is expected in late April, early May. It's going to have free original content for people who own Apple devices. Apparently, they're going to have a subscription platform for existing digital services that are not named Netflix or HBO.

Mueller: [laughs] Right. Hulu's still out of it, too. This is Apple's way of trying to become a bundled cable provider without being a cable provider. They want to be a one-stop app for subscribing to your news, to your entertainment...

Hill: Music.

Mueller: Music, whether they add that on or not. And they're sweetening the deal with some original content you get just for having an iOS device. The writing's on the wall, as far as cable bundles go. Those are slowly disappearing. So Apple and Amazon, too, through their Prime Video channels, are offering these different apps. The incentive for the over-the-top streamer like Hulu -- or Netflix or whoever, CBS, Viacom,and Lionsgate's Starz have reportedly signed on with Apple -- is that Apple gets a cut of the revenue. They seem to be holding out for 30%, which is pretty hefty. 

Hill: That's what they have in the App Store, right?

Mueller: For the apps, I think that's right. But, for instance, I subscribe to HBO NOW through my Apple TV. HBO NOW only has to pay Apple 15%. Apple is trying to get even more out of this deal. Their news service that they're supposed to launch, the report is that they're having a 50/50 revenue share. Plus, they get the data of the viewing habits of these people. So, rather than having to exit your Netflix app to open up a Hulu app or a CBS News app or a CBS app or whatever it is, they just want to have you be able to click through channels like you did on your old cable box. 

This is part of Apple's move toward getting more Services revenue. It was about 13% Services revenue in the first quarter, which was just reported recently. That's up from 10% the year before. Their product sales, the number of iPhones they're selling, is slowly going down. It's good enough, right? This is where they seem to be heading. We'll just have to see how it works out. 

Hill: Part of me wants to just skip ahead to the fall. Because typically, Apple has an event in the fall where they unveil the latest version of their devices, that sort of thing. If this launch goes well, presumably at that point, that becomes part of the selling proposition, doesn't it? They're looking to get more people in the devices, they're looking to get people to upgrade more. They've done an admirable job of getting people into Apple Music, there's somewhere between 55 million and 60 million subscribers. So, if they can pull this off, then presumably, it moves the needle to some degree on the devices. 

Mueller: Maybe.

Hill: But, boy, I think if they could go back in time, they would rethink the battery replacement program. I continue to wait for -- maybe this will never come, but I really want to know the behind-the-scenes story of how that all played out. The estimates that, "We'll only need to replace one million batteries," and it ends up being 11 million batteries, and the massive ripple effect in sales. 

Mueller: Yeah. That had a big issue. It certainly affected sales of the iPhone X. But if you go back in history, Apple's modern growth started off with the iPod, the little thing, the music player. They'd launched their Music Store to get people to buy the iPod. You could very well be right, this could be another way to get people to buy the devices.

Hill: If you're Netflix, you're not worried about this right now, are you? You're keeping an eye on it, but you're not worried about this.

Mueller: Apple has some original content. Keep an eye on that. Reports say they spent about a billion dollars last year on that, and they've signed up Oprah Winfrey, among others, to help produce that content. It might be interesting to watch and just add it as another subscription. But if I'm Netflix, yeah, I'm probably not too worried about it. 

Hill: I mentioned at the top that HBO is not involved in this. I should have added the word "yet." It will be interesting to see, come late April, early May, when they announce this, if, in fact, they have struck a deal with HBO.

Mueller: HBO has the deal already through the ITV of 15%. They might be dragging their feet about doubling that and losing another 15% of the revenue.

Hill: If you're HBO, you're like: "No. We'll stick with the deal we have. We'll go with 15%."

Mueller: Showtime is supposed to be on this new thing, too. That might push them forward.

Hill: Our email address is marketfoolery@fool.com. I actually got a question from Greg yesterday. We've done a couple of these recently, Live Q&As on YouTube. This was a question we got yesterday that we didn't have time to get to. Question from Greg, who asks a great question and really a timeless question. He asks: "How many stocks should I own? I hear and read about only having about 25 stocks to watch or hold at a time. I have more than 45. What are your thoughts?"

Mueller: Greg, you're a piker. [laughs] 

Hill: Whoa, whoa! Why do you have to take a shot at Greg like that?

Mueller: No insult meant or anything like that. It really depends on the person. I have three different accounts that I control. I have 12 stocks in one, 20 in another, and 60 or 70 in the third one. 

Hill: Let me just add, you do this for a living, so I would expect you to have more. [laughs] 

Mueller: Yeah. But my point is, I don't follow all 60 or 70 of those stocks. If you want a lot of stocks -- and people have done very, very well in investing in a lot of stocks. Peter Lynch, for instance. The saying was he never met a stock he didn't like. And he had a big team following them for him. But on a personal level, if you enjoy the game of investing, if you enjoy reading about companies and following them and listening to conference calls and thinking about them and where they can go, sure, put in as many stocks as you can comfortably follow, and even a bunch of stocks that you invest in based on somebody you trust. I mean, the one account that has 60 or 70, those are David Gardner picks on Stock Advisor that I just buy monthly for that account. I trust David's picking ability. Whether they go up or down, that's what happens. 

The more concentrated portfolios I have, my taxable is the one that has just a dozen. Those are the ones I keep a pretty close eye on. Netflix and a couple of others. 

The whole idea about having a bunch of stocks is to get diversification. But, you need diversification not just in the number of stocks. If you have 25 and 15 of them are in the tech sector, you're not diversified. You need to diversify across industries, and most people don't have a lot of expertise in multiple industries. So, to get the diversification effect, I think one of the best ways is to have half or two-thirds of your portfolio in a broad market index like the Vanguard Index Fund. Really low fees. You don't want to pay too much for this. But you get all the diversification from that. And then, start investing in some individual stocks that really pique your interest and you know you'll follow. You should do OK that way. 

Hill: Also, you talk about the different ways to diversify. One way to do that is, and you touched on this, how much leash you give a stock, how often you check in on it. The more stocks you own, the more you find that you're going to have some group of those stocks that you're not really checking because you feel secure in how they're doing. Maybe once a quarter, that sort of thing. You've got others that are on a shorter leash, that you think: "Maybe this is one I need to cut back on. Maybe this is one that I need to get out of." But invariably, you're going to have a diversity of attention that you pay to them. 

Mueller: There's that diversification as well. Certainly don't check it every day. 

Hill: Yeah, don't do that.

Mueller: Not even every week. Maybe once a month. Just see, what's the latest news? Did the CEO run off with a mistress of some sort and abscond with all the money? Did he die and not pass on the cryptocurrency password? 

Hill: How crazy is that story? [laughs] 

Mueller: Wow! [laughs] So, keep a general eye on it, but once a month is fine, unless you really enjoy the game.

Hill: Programming note, the market is closed on Monday 18th for Presidents Day. We'll be back on Tuesday 19th.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Reuters has a story about a survey of 500 Americans and their affinity for Netflix. A number of questions in the survey. One of the more noteworthy ones was that, when asked if they had to choose between giving up sex or giving up Netflix, 30% of respondents said they would give up sex. Boy, I knew the draw for Netflix was strong, I didn't realize it was that strong. 

Mueller: Well, there's also the combo, Netflix and chill, right? 

Hill: Exactly. 

Mueller: The survey was done by HSI. I misled you when I mentioned this this morning. The reporting we're both looking at was done by Forbes. 

Hill: Oh, OK. Not Reuters. 

Mueller: No. 

Hill: My bad. 

Mueller: 500 Americans -- and this is Americans, not worldwide. 500 Americans ranging in age from 18 to 54 -- we're both in the top end of that. Really, some of the other stuff they said, like, if you're dating, does their Netflix tastes matter? And a bunch of people said yeah. A third of the respondents said they've gotten into an argument over what to watch on Netflix. Some people use it as a criteria for figuring out whether to go out with a person or not. 10% of the respondents said they dated someone to get access to their Netflix account. 

Hill: Yeah, 10% admitted to dating someone just to have access to their Netflix subscription. When you break down the survey by age, millennials say that they do that more than any other group. That's the one where I just sort of looked at it and thought, look, it's one thing to want to date someone where you're compatible and you're interested in the same types of shows. That makes perfect sense to me. What's going on in your personal finances that you're like, "God, I have to start dating this person because they have Netflix."

Mueller: "And I can't afford the $8 a month."

Hill: Right. Come on, do better in your personal finances! Start listening to Motley Fool Answers, get your personal finances in order, and don't be part of that group. 

Mueller: And then there's the Netflix cheating. People have actually broken up over that. That's where you're both watching a TV series or movies series or something, and one of them watches ahead in the absence of the other, and the other one feels betrayed. [laughs] 

Hill: Betrayal comes in many forms.

Mueller: It does. 

Hill: Thanks for being here!

Mueller: Thank you!

Hill: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. That's going to do it for this edition of MarketFoolery. The show is mixed by Dan Boyd. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening! We'll see you on Tuesday!

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) Holdings Lowered by Montag A & Associates Inc.

Montag A & Associates Inc. lessened its stake in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA:RSP) by 7.6% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 108,924 shares of the company’s stock after selling 8,917 shares during the quarter. Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF makes up approximately 1.1% of Montag A & Associates Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 22nd biggest holding. Montag A & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF were worth $9,956,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in RSP. Paragon Capital Management Ltd bought a new stake in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF in the third quarter worth $239,000. Buffington Mohr McNeal raised its stake in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF by 8.9% in the third quarter. Buffington Mohr McNeal now owns 13,472 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,439,000 after buying an additional 1,105 shares in the last quarter. Creative Planning raised its stake in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF by 1.6% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 108,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $11,535,000 after buying an additional 1,703 shares in the last quarter. Annex Advisory Services LLC grew its holdings in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF by 2.1% in the third quarter. Annex Advisory Services LLC now owns 479,559 shares of the company’s stock worth $51,222,000 after purchasing an additional 9,808 shares during the period. Finally, Iberiabank Corp grew its holdings in Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Iberiabank Corp now owns 44,078 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,235 shares during the period.

Get Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF alerts:

NYSEARCA:RSP opened at $102.67 on Friday. Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF has a 52 week low of $85.76 and a 52 week high of $108.89.

ILLEGAL ACTIVITY NOTICE: “Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) Holdings Lowered by Montag A & Associates Inc.” was reported by Ticker Report and is owned by of Ticker Report. If you are reading this article on another website, it was illegally copied and republished in violation of international copyright and trademark laws. The original version of this article can be viewed at https://www.tickerreport.com/banking-finance/4154613/invesco-sp-500-equal-weight-etf-rsp-holdings-lowered-by-montag-a-associates-inc.html.

Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF Profile

Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, formerly Rydex S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, seeks to replicate as closely as possible, the daily performance of the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index (the Index). The Index is a capitalization-weighted index covering 500 industrial, utility, transportation and financial companies of the United States markets (mostly NYSE Euronext issues).

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding RSP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA:RSP).

Institutional Ownership by Quarter for Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA:RSP)

Saturday, February 16, 2019

PepsiCo (PEP) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

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PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference CallFeb. 15, 2019 7:45 a.m. ET

Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to PepsiCo's fourth-quarter 2018 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] Today's call is being recorded and will be archived at www.pepsico.com. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Jamie Caulfield, senior vice president of investor relations.

Mr. Caulfield, you may begin.

Jamie Caulfield -- Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined this morning by PepsiCo's Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta, and PepsiCo's Vice Chairman and CFO Hugh Johnston. We'll begin with approximately 25 minutes of prepared comments from Ramon and Hugh, and then open the call up to your questions. Before we begin, please take note of our cautionary statement.

This conference call includes forward-looking statements, including statements regarding 2019 guidance and long-term targets, based on currently available information. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those predicted. Statements made on this conference call should be considered together with cautionary statements and other information contained in today's earnings release and in our most recent periodic reports filed with the SEC. When discussing our financial results on today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP measures, which exclude certain items from our reported results.

Such items include the impacts of certain tax-related matters, foreign exchange translations, acquisitions, divestitures, structural and other changes, and restructuring charges. You should refer to the glossary and other attachments to this morning's earnings release and to the Investor section of PepsiCo's website under the Events and Presentations tab to find full explanations and reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures. And now it's my pleasure to introduce Ramon Laguarta.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. We'll begin this morning's call with a brief recap of 2018 performance, and then move on to a discussion at -- of go-forward priorities, long-term targets and the financial outlook for 2019. So let's begin with 2018, which was a very successful year. We met or exceeded each of the financial targets we outlined at the beginning of the year.

Organic revenue grew 3.7%, which was a meaningful sequential acceleration from 2017. And within the year, we saw the rate of growth accelerate from 2.5% in the first half to 4.7% in the second half.  Purely North America and each one of the international divisions performed very well, and NAV made progress throughout the year with a return to organic revenue growth and improved pricing. At the same time, we continued to make investments in the business, and the solid momentum we have as we enter 2019 is a good indication that those investments are working. Now on to priorities.

As most of you know, I assumed the role of CEO in early October, and I'm pleased to report that the transition has gone very well. And I'm fortunate step into the role at such a well-positioned company. PepsiCo competes in attractive, large and growing categories. We've been leading -- we have leading brands and a broad portfolio capable of evolving into new growth spaces.

We have a very well-developed geographic footprint, with a stronghold positions in our largest markets and very competitive positions in a number of other rapidly growing markets. We have a suite of strong and very relevant capabilities across the value chain that we've been -- that have been built and strengthened over the years. We have scale that allows us to run our operations very efficiently and to leverage our capability investments across a large and global business. We have highly engaged associates, a strong cohesive management team and deep talent bench. And we have a distinct winning culture that has its -- at its foundation, well embodied values and a strong sense of purpose.

These traits have enabled us to perform well in an environment characterized by highly dynamic retail and competitive landscapes, shifting consumer habits and preferences, and volatile currencies, commodities and geopolitics. Over the past six years, organic revenue growth has averaged 3.8%. Core operating margin has expanded by 1.6 percentage points. Core constant currency earnings-per-share growth has averaged 9%.

Core ROIC has expanded by 9.5 percentage points to 24.8%. Dividends per share have grown 9% on a compound basis. And we're returning $45 billion to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. I've spended the past four months deeply engaged in the business, connecting with our consumers, our customers and associates, as well as spending considerable time together as a senior leadership team, having no holds barred debates with a goal of focusing on what the opportunities are to make our company even faster, stronger and better.

We looked for opportunities to improve our strategies, our portfolio of businesses, the strength and breadth of our capabilities, how we organize and get work done, how we can take our execution to new heights and how we can elevate our sense of purpose. And from this review and assessment, we emerged with a set of what I'll call observation and a very clear set of go-forward priorities. Let me begin with the observations. Fundamentally, we're a highly focused convenient food and beverage company. We compete in very attractive, large, growing and highly complementary categories that share many common characteristics, including consumers, customers, shoppers and occasions.

Our ability to leverage the scale of our business to invest in and deploy new capabilities and technologies is a competitive advantage. Furthermore, we have tremendous potential to expand consumption across multiple dimensions. We believe we can capture a greater share of consumption occasions by considering to broaden our portfolio to provide greater choice to satisfy consumers evolving taste, whether they are seeking for an indulgent treat or a more nutritious snack, hydration or a functional drink, on-the-go convenience or take-home value. And we also see the opportunity to continue to increase consumers perceived visibility of our products as an additional growth avenue. Relatedly, we believe our product and geographic portfolios make sense.

And we do not currently see the need to shed or acquire businesses in any significant way. Those businesses are not squarely on strategy, are relatively small and generate very healthy cash flows. And there is no apparent value-creating path to divest them because of tax consequences and/or transaction complexity. Let me go now into our individual businesses.

Frito-Lay in North America, our largest sector by profit, is an extremely strong businesses -- strong business that generates consistently attractive top-line growth and has industry-leading margins and returns on invested capital. The core of Fritos business remains very strong and growing. Over the years, Frito has successfully adopted its portfolio to address new demand spaces, mainly in more permissible and premium snacking. We've added new brands and product lines to capitalize on those opportunities, with products like simply, SunChips, Smartfood, Off the Eaten Path and Imagine.

And we expect this approach will enable Frito to continue to compete very effectively across the spectrum of the snacks category.  Furthermore, we see more runway to continue to source volume from other micro snacks occasions in what that played to Fritos strengths -- in ways that play to Frito's strength. Operationally, Frito runs extremely efficient and highly optimized supply chain and go-to-market systems. However, capacity utilization is very high on average and there are pockets where capacity is overstretched. We believe with added capacity, Frito will be even better positioned to capture new growth opportunities.

Let me move now to North America Beverages. NAB, our largest sector by revenue, is an attractive business. It has many leading brands in growing beverage categories and operates a differentiated integrated business model. We believe our operating model is a competitive advantage that provides superior customer and system alignment, speed to market and systemwide efficiency.

With that said, in a dynamic market, NAB has faced a number of challenges over the past 18 months. New entrants have come to market in some of our stronghold categories. There are opportunities to improve some of our brand marketing and consumer engagement. And there are areas where we can step up our local marketplace execution. We have good plans in place to address these opportunities.

We've increased both the quality and level of A&M on key core brands, including Pepsi and Mountain Dew. We've increased our innovation to address new category entrants and to drive success in higher growth segments, with innovations like LIFEWTR, bubly, Gatorade Zero, new variants of Propel and extensions within our successful Starbucks and pure life -- Pure Leaf Tea guidance. At the same time, we're having good success with Pepsi Zero Sugar, and this has been a key element in stabilizing the performance of our trademark Pepsi business. And we're making changes to our NAB organization structure and adding frontline resources to make us a more agile and respondent to local commercial opportunities and local competitive actions.

While there is more work to do, we're very encouraged by this steady sequential improvement we've seen in the business. We are confident that with more well-placed investments, we'll see continued improvement in any of these performance. Let me talk a bit about international now. We have a very well developed international footprint, and our international businesses are performing very well. We have strong market positions in snacks globally and within most of our key markets.

And in beverages, we have very competitive market positions, either outright or in combination with our bottling partners who provide scale and round out our beverage product portfolio. In most of our key markets, we're the No. 1 or No. 2 overall food and beverage supplier.

Our categories travel well. And we had success innovating and marketing in ways that make our products highly relevant at a local level. We have a very well qualified playbook to expand our business in developing and emerging markets by exploiting our global capabilities to grow penetration and frequency. A key element of the playbook is lifting and shifting our ideas from market to market, still that we continue to hold.

We believe with greater focus on capability deployments, increasing the local relevance of our products and achieving greater scale, our international business, especially in D&E markets, can be a source of even greater growth and higher profitability. Underpinning all we do is our commitment to a strong environmental, social and governance agenda. Our sense of purpose is a great inspiration to our associates and makes us a very attractive place to build a career. Furthermore, we understand that we're an integral member of the communities we operate in. We embrace the notion that we can and should make big positive impacts in our communities by leveraging our scale and deploying our capabilities to help our communities strive.

We believe a strong ESG agenda is fundamental to long-term value creation. Our dedication to environmental, social and governance leadership will not waver. So with these observations in mind, let me move on to our priorities. Our first set of priorities relates to becoming faster, specifically, accelerating our rate of organic revenue growth.

And if there's one thing I'd like you to take from our discussion today is that, we view topline acceleration as the single biggest opportunity to create more shareholder value. To achieve accelerated topline growth, we intend to strengthen and broaden our product portfolio packaging formats to win locally in convenient foods and beverages. And this means growing our core businesses as we continue to evolve our product portfolio and sharpening our focus on key geographies. Across snacks and beverages, we'll invest to capture a greater share of consumption occasions, from indulgent to functional, social to individual, value to premium, and across dayparts from morning to night. We plan to do this by continuing to grow our core brands, which include $22 billion brands, and building and/or acquiring new brands to cover new demand spaces, as we have recently done with bubly, LIFEWTR, update in Path or Bare.

Within snacks, we intend to further capitalize on the consumer trends of convenience and on-the-go in locally relevant ways. Here, we see themes of convenient mini meals, local street foods and local recipes, just a few inspirations to evolve our portfolio in very locally relevant ways. We intend to rapidly scale our beyond the bottle initiative, building on the foundations of our recent acquisition of SodaStream and our internally developed Spire, Drinkfinity and Aquafina water station platforms to offer consumers even greater variety and choice in beverage formats. From a geographic perspective, our priorities are clear: No,.

1, invest to sustain Frito-Lay North America's growth and leadership; No. 2, strengthen North America Beverages to grow sustainably with the market; and third, accelerate our international expansion with a disciplined focus on right to win markets. Across each of these initiatives, we'll deploy a simple, clear and very effective growth model that's highly focused on the consumer. That is providing the consumer four key benefits: variety, that is what I want; ubiquity, where I want it; desirability, from a brand I trust; and value, with the benefits or affordability that appeals to me. Our entire commercial agenda is centered on delivering these four benefits to the consumer.

Our second set of priorities relates to becoming stronger. This involves becoming more capable, leaner, more agile and less bureaucratic. In doing so, we will drive down cost and that enables us to plow the savings back into the business to develop scale and sharpen core capabilities that drive even greater efficiency and effectiveness creating a virtuous cycle. Our productivity programs will be guided by a set of universally applied principles, namely: achieving local affordability; simplifying and standardizing processes; collaborating across functions rather than optimizing within functions to achieve lowest cost end-to-end processes; relentlessly automating and merging the best of our optimized business models with the best new thinking and technologies. Just as importantly, we're also adopting a philosophy that recognizes that not all the capabilities or costs are equal, so we'll be very discriminating in where we need to pay for best-in-class or we should pay for just good enough.

These principles will be applied across the entire cost structure, from labor to discretionary costs, and advertising and marketing, to fixed assets.The savings from our productivity programs will be substantially reinvested to develop and scale a set of core capabilities that we believe are necessary to deliver the consumer benefits I mentioned earlier. These capabilities are: indispensable brand building; science and design-led innovation; point of choice excellence across all channels, whether traditional or emerging; consumer intimacy, that is leveraging technology and connecting data to deepen our relationships with consumers, moving from relationships with groups of consumers to relationships with individual consumers. This enables a number of benefits, from individually based media and marketing engagement to personalized pricing; and finally, supply chain agility, where we deploy integrated and more robust data to improve demand forecasting and automation, advance robotics and other technology to make our manufacturing assets and go-to-market systems much more flexible to satisfy that demand with greater speed, precision and efficiency. And of course, executing this aggressive agenda of top-line acceleration productivity and capability building will require fostering a high-performance culture, one that is aligned on a common set of leadership behaviors and is supported by the right incentive systems. Among the values we are emphasizing throughout the organization are being more center on the consumer, acting like owners, and moving with focus and speed.

And finally, we're examining ways to refine our incentive and pay systems to encourage local empowerment and accountability, as well as even greater alignment between management, our shareholders. And our third and final objective relates to being a better company, with -- by being purpose-led. Performance with Purpose has been a cornerstone of PepsiCo for 12 years. Its guided our strategy and has been a point of differentiation.

We're very proud of the progress we've made to date and equally excited about the continued evolution of our purpose agenda. With this in mind, our organization is committing to winning with purpose, which marks a new chapter in our purpose agenda. It acknowledges PepsiCo's leadership in integrating sustainability with a strive for more than a decade and conveys our belief that sustainability can be an even greater contributor to our success in the marketplace. Essential to our winning with purpose agenda will be a sharpened focus on advancing sustainability -- advance in sustainable agricultural practices, a holistic strategy to support the creation of a circle or plastic economy, a striving for positive water impact and continuing to make our products more permissible to consumers. As we work to execute each one of these priorities, our overarching goal is to accelerate the rate of topline growth to enable us to deliver balanced, sustainable financial performance that creates greater long-term sharehold value.

With that, now let me hand it over to Hugh to cover the financial goals in more detail.

Hugh Johnston -- Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Great. Thank you, Ramon, and good morning, everyone. The plans Ramon just laid out are intended to create durable, attractive long-term financial performance and total shareholder returns, driven by organic revenue growth of 4% to 6%, 20 to 30 basis points of average annual core operating margin expansion, high single-digit core constant currency EPS growth, growing core net returns on invested capital, and attractive free cash flow and cash returns to shareholders. To support our free cash flow and core net ROIC goals, we remain committed to disciplined capital allocation with our existing priorities intact, namely: No.

1, investing in the business; No.2, paying a dividend; No. 3, tuck-in acquisitions; and No.4, returning residual cash to shareholders through share repurchases. Productivity is a key component of our go-forward plans, providing both fuel for reinvestment and improving our operating margins. We're extending our productivity savings target of more than $1 billion annually through 2023.

Contributing to this goal are savings we expect from restructuring actions we announced in this morning's release. We intend to make substantial investments in the business in 2019 in A&M, manufacturing and go-to-market capacity, end-to-end supply chain transformation, and global systems harmonization and standardization. While there are investments in each category in each operating sector, in terms of emphasis, in Frito-Lay North America and our international sectors, there is relatively greater emphasis on adding manufacturing and go-to-market capacity and supply chain transformation. In the case of North America Beverages, there is relatively greater emphasis on investing to support the core brands, ramped up innovation, and adding and redirecting resources to drive enhanced local marketplace execution. And across all the sectors, as well as at the corporate center, we're investing to drive global systems harmonization and standardization.

These investments are being made with the aim of building the capabilities and implementing the processes that will support the achievement of the strategic priorities Ramon just reviewed, especially the achievement of sustained accelerated topline performance. We deeply analyze and assess each of the planned investments. We've established detailed guidepost to measure our progress and success against each one. And we're confident that the investments will return meaningful value to investors over time. Beyond the stepped-up investments, our 2019 core earnings performance will be impacted by three other factors: first, we're lapping a number of strategic asset sale and refranchising gains and insurance recoveries net of a front-line bonus that contributed approximately $0.17 to earnings in 2018; second, we expect the core tax rate to increase to approximately 21% in 2019 from a rate of 18.8% in 2018; and third, we expect foreign exchange translation to be an approximate 2-percentage-point headwind to both revenue and EPS performance in 2019.

Taking all of this together, for 2019, we expect organic revenue growth of 4% and core EPS of approximately $5.50. Importantly, we expect to see a return to high single-digit core constant currency EPS growth in 2020. For 2019, we also expect free cash flow of approximately $5 billion, reflecting a step-up in CAPEX to approximately $4.5 billion. Most of the increased capital spending is associated with accelerating progress on our strategic priorities.

Following 2019, we expect our capital spending to moderate and to return to approximately 5% of revenue by 2022. We expect total cash returns to shareholders of approximately $8 billion in 2019, comprised with dividends of approximately $5 billion and share repurchases of approximately $3 billion. With that, we'll now open it up to your questions. Operator, we'll take the first question. 

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions ] Our first question comes from the line of Dara Mohsenian of Morgan Stanley.

Dara Mohsenian -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Hey, guys.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Dara Mohsenian -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

So Ramon and Hugh, your 2019 guidance clearly implies some substantial reinvestment, both from a P&L standpoint and on the CAPEX line. Just at a high level, how did the organization come to that decision under new leadership? Is this more sort of underutilized opportunities under new CEO, you're looking at, as you highlighted maybe on the Frito capacity side? Or is it more a need to reboost coffers after a tough external environment the last few years that may have pressured spend a bit? Because you do appear to be leaving 2018 with some nice momentum from a top-line perspective. So just trying to better understand the decision at a high level. And then also it would be helpful if you could give us some more granular detail on which product categories or geographies that incremental spend is particularly focused on, both from P&L and CAPEX standpoint.

And what gives you confidence around the ROI behind that spend as you look out getting it back to that high single-digit algorithm beyond 2019?

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Let me start. The -- I mean the process was a, say a four-month process that we've -- you know we've been together as a management team over a series of meetings, trying to define what would be the next chapter of PepsiCo. And we came to the realization that we have a good company, we can be a great company.

And there is a, say an aligned vision to be a much faster growing company, because we see that our categories are very healthy in large, growing across the world. And we have been performing OK against the category, but there is further growth and further opportunities for us to grow share in those categories. And the process started with, let's see how we can refocus the discretionary funds that we have in each one of our business against the growth opportunities. So we're doing that as part of the AOP for '19.

And then we came to the realization, there is even further opportunities for us to invest and grow our top line in a very competitive way and profitable way. So that's what we are. In terms of the areas of spend, you should think about we're investing across all the businesses, from our North America business to our international businesses. And we're investing in brand building, selling capacity and supply chain capacity.

Those are the big areas. And also, we've been in building capabilities for the last few years, and we are going to continue to do in areas like away from home, e-commerce, some of the large channels that are driving a lot of growth for the categories.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane of Bank of America.

Bryan Spillane -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Bryan Spillane -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

So just two questions related to the investments this year. One, is there incremental -- is it $1 billion of incremental productivity also in 2019? And then second, I guess, as we look at -- there were some investments that went into the business in '18 and then some incremental investments that goes into the business in '19. So in trying to understand like how much of that goes in and stays in the business? Kind of the relative size of that? I mean back of the envelope, I was set of getting to about $500 million. So if you can give us any sense as to whether that's close to the ballpark in terms of the size of the reinvestment?

Hugh Johnston -- Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Bryan, it's Hugh. So in terms of the size of the reinvestment, we haven't got overly specific with the numbers. But if you think about what our normal EPS is versus what we're doing this year, I would think about somewhere between 40% and 50% of it being reinvestment and then the other factors.

We've mentioned the tax rate and the one-timer lapping being the other parts of it. As to the other part of your question, as you know even in late 2017 and into 2018, we did start making some reinvestments back into the business because with the tax cut and other things, we had the opportunity to do that in '18. The thing that gives us a lot of confidence and gives us a belief that the ROIs are going to be good is the money that we've invested so far, we have actually seen good payback. The reason for that is, obviously, we participate in two great categories, convenient foods and beverages.

And when we invest money in those businesses, there's good consumer and customer response to it. So the fact that we put money into the businesses and we've seen such good response is what gives us confidence, like going forward, we should continue to do that into 2019. The one thing I do want to stress in all of this is, we started with making the internal cost structure of the company more efficient and have done everything we can do with that, and the restructuring is part of doing that. The incremental portion of it obviously is what we're talking to you about its investors, but I want to assure you while that we've worked hard to make sure PepsiCo is as efficient as it can possibly be, and we'll continue to strive to do that as well.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman of Barclays.

Lauren Lieberman -- Barclays -- Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. I know that you very specifically talked about 2020 earnings growth coming back to kind of the high single-digit range. But in the long-term guidance, you did lower the long-term operating margin target to like 20 to 30 basis points, something more like 30 to 50.

So can you just talk a little bit about what's driving that view of the long-term margin in the business? Is it a change in the what's passes from a gross margin perspective? It sounds like a lot of the productivity and restructuring that you're doing should be yielding a more efficient cost structure for the long term? So I was curious why there's sort of less operating leverage in the long-term model.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Let me start and then Hugh can give you a few more details. If you think about the three things we're trying to do, which is become faster, stronger and better. We want to first, invest in the business and opportunities that we see ahead of us, and that's going to make us faster, and that's -- they're investments we put in the business last year.

As Hugh said, we've optimized, we've seen the ROIs, and we're deploying again this year with some incremental investments. The second concept of being stronger goes to the question that you're posing here which is we're trying to look at adapting technology and data much more in our business, in the way we do business. That will drive a lot of savings that we'll be reinvesting in the new capabilities we've been talking about. We believe that will give us a competitive -- sustained competitive advantage over the long term.

These are capabilities in the areas of basically consumer customer and supply chain agility. So yes, you will see a, I think, a virtuous cycle of additional savings, being both brought to the bottom line and what we think is a 0.2, 0.3 margin expansion every year, but very importantly, we want to make sure that the business gets the reinvestment required to become -- to stay as a very competitive business long-term.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ali Dibadj of Bernstein.

Ali Dibadj -- Bernstein Research -- Analyst

Welcome, Ramon. So I have actually three questions and all under the umbrella of your philosophy, Ramon. One is that you mentioned you met with clients and consumers and employees. But it doesn't seem like you'd done a lot of meetings with shareholders in forming your observations and priorities.

And just wanted to understand why. Clearly, the lot of folks on this call are your owners. Secondly, your philosophy on reinvestments, how does that apply to your philosophy on price/mix rationality, for a lack of a better term, i.e. kind of measured increases and pricing over the past few years, and beverages has taken that industry out of the penalty box for investors, so I'd love to hear your philosophy there.

And lastly, your level of confidence that one year of reinvestments is enough to get back to your accelerated long-term growth algorithm 2020 and beyond.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Ali. Let me start from the last one, I think it's a core, the essence of what we're trying to do. As Hugh said, we started investing in '18 back in the business. I mean the tax reduction helped us there.

and we saw areas where we had very high ROIs, which some area where we didn't have so much high ROIs. So we, at the beginning of this year, we went through a what I think is a pretty rigorous process of filtering investments and saying, "OK, these are areas where we need to double down." And we're adding some more resources to those areas. And it's across, what I said, branding, selling capacity, manufacturing capacity, supply chain capacity and some of the new capabilities. But again, the essence of the model is not this one-year effort that we're trying to make with additional resources.

The essence is how we're transforming the machine, the operating machine of PepsiCo with technology and data, and really looking very hard our cost structures to drive sustained savings that we'll reinvest in these new capabilities that we need for the future. That is really the essence of the model. But don't think of a one-year investment which would be a two-year investment because '18, we already started investing. But think of this as an acceleration and then a very clear transformation of capabilities that will make the acceleration sustainable.

And it's a virtuous cycle of adapting technologies, driving savings and reinvesting those savings into what we think are the things that will make us best-in-class in our industry, and it's doubling down on consumer intimacies, doubling down on innovation, doubling down in brand-building, it's multi-channel go-to-market capabilities and then flexible supply chain. That's how we are -- how we see the long-term momentum.

Hugh Johnston -- Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

And Ali, the follow-up on your question on price rationality, we do think there's price rationality in the market right now. And a part of our long-term algorithm is continued price rationality in the marketplace.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Judy Hong of Goldman Sachs.

Judy Hong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. So I guess I wanted to actually ask about Frito-Lay North America, Ramon. So clearly, that business has been on a pretty solid footing.

You talked about the potential opportunities to grow that business further. A lot of the growth in the last few years has come from price/mix. So I'm just wondering if you can elaborate on more specific programs to really drive consumption and volume increases in Frito-Lay. And then separately, Ramon, I think you talked about being happy with the portfolio, and not really making a big changes to your portfolio, either acquisition or divestiture.

I know you guys been looking at North America beverage business from a refranchising perspective. Is that now off the table as you kind of went through the review in the last four months?

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Let me start with Frito. Listen, Frito is probably one of the I would say, best consumer companies in the world, I would say, and we continue to find ways to transform ourselves, both on the portfolio and on the capabilities and infrastructure of the business. So the way we're thinking about Frito is you think our share of market is about 65% of salty, about 39% of what we call savory and only 19% of micro snacks.

We see great opportunities for Frito to grow into new dayparts, into new channels, into even grow within existing channels and within existing consumer occasions. So the growth opportunities for Frito are multiple. I think the team has done a great job in keeping a very healthy core, our Doritos, Cheetos, Lay's, Raffles, Tostitos brands are growing very healthy, and build additional brands that cover new spaces, either cohorts or dayparts. So we see a very strong growth model from the brand perspective, from the channel perspective.

And what we're trying to do is make sure Frito gets -- is well-funded to go after all these opportunities both from the P&L and from the CAPEX point of view, because the ROIC on those investments is unbeatable. And I believe we have an amazing team that is extremely capable, proves it every day in the marketplace and is very rigorous in how they manage investments. So empowering that team with the right resources and giving them the higher vision of grow even faster and gain more share in the U.S. snack business I think is the right thing to do for the -- for PepsiCo.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan.

Andrea Teixeira -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Thank you. So Ramon, best of luck as the CEO. And I just wanted to ask you about the company's long-term organic revenue growth, the target of 4% to 6%. So could you maybe help us decompose this target between your expectations for snacks and beverages globally, as well as in developed and developing markets? And just a clarification on Judy's second question I think about refranchising.

Should we -- have you decide not to refranchise NAB at this time, or is it still on the table?

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Let me address both. I mean the way you should think and there about our 4% to 6% is we have a great portfolio of geographies and categories around the world, and we see this more side of opportunities where we're investing to drive growth and be more competitive short-term and long-term and should be thinking about the overall portfolio delivering this number of between 4% to 6%. So I won't go into the details of how are going to grow in each one of these categories.

You will see us as we unfold the results going forward. With regards to NAB, yes, I think, sorry i did -- I forgot to answer the question before, yes, we spent a lot of time as a management team, obviously studying NAB and the different options we have there. We love NAB business. We think it's a great business that will play a very important role in the future of PepsiCo, and we're convinced it will drive very good results for us.

And we believe that the key areas of success I think for NAB going forward will be around having the very strong brands in the different spaces and cohorts. And we think we have the brands. And we've may be may have to strengthen some of the brands or we have those brands and we'll be able to create new brands with -- as we've proven with bubly or LIFEWTR or some of our new innovations. Second will be, our ability to execute in the marketplace, both with the very large customers and also in the local up and down the street.

And I think we can do that, and we are a great operating company, and we know we can do this without refranchising. Third point will be having a very flexible and cost competitive supply chain. And the third will be having the right high-performance culture in the business. All of those four success factors to me are not related to refranchising, plus refranchising per se will be a very complex and disruptive event for us as a company.

So yes, you should assume that we're going to compete very hard in this business. We're going to invest sustainably and rationally. And we'll keep building a very strong company that I'm convinced will do great for us in the near future.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Powers of Deutsche Bank.

Steve Powers -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Thanks so much. Congrats for me as well, Ramon.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Steve Powers -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

And I was hoping we could just dig a little bit further into your strategic outlook. If we think about PepsiCo in 2025, what does being the great company that you mentioned at the outset really look like? How would you describe it? And how important is it to you that you can arrive at that destination without the need for another sidestep or effective algorithm reset somewhere between? And maybe as you just talked about that future vision, just going to the prior conversation, just love some color on what you -- what role you think, the long-standing better together power of one strategy plays within that? It sounds like something you remain committed to. So do you think maybe can be strengthened further? But I'll just love if you could expand on that as well.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

You should think of PepsiCo as a, I said, a company that plays in two huge large categories that globally, have a lot of tailwind. And our ability to perform on a very high competitive level in those two categories globally gives us the ability to be a top-performing investment for you guys in the consumer goods space. So I think you should be thinking about a company that has a long-term value creation model, center around accelerated growth and sustained growth, and gaining share consistently in our two large categories. That's how I would ambition.

How we do it. I think we painted a picture on how we're thinking about our portfolio and how we're going to be look very holistically at the opportunities in each of our categories. And there's multiple demands, spaces, there's a lot of coffers, there's a lot of different dayparts in those categories that provide for immense opportunities for us to innovate and build brands and continue to grow. Geographically, you should be thinking about a company that is, I would say, skewed to developed markets, Western Europe and the U.S., And obviously, long-term, we would like to be stronger in some of our developing markets, while we have strong positions to build on top, so we have strong talent, we have strong market position in some of those markets.

And you should think about us growing very fast in those geographies and adding to our -- how we reach consumers around the world. Think of us, we sell 1.5 billion servings a day, so we touch conceptually 1.5 billion people around the world every day, so our ambition is to become at least a two -- touch at least 2 billion people every day, that's some of the aspiration we have as a management team. So you should be thinking around the vectors of how many people we serve every day and around what do we offer that people in terms of the both the convenient foods and the beverage categories.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Caroline Levy of Macquarie.

Caroline Levy -- Macquarie Group -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, and best of luck, Ramon.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Caroline Levy -- Macquarie Group -- Analyst

My question is around -- I'm just hoping you can actually elaborate on what you can do in the route-to-market field, just a little more detail, because if I think about the beverage business, it feels like you have some catch-up, particularly in North America. In snacks, you're already really, really good. So taking the two different sides, are you going to focus more on the small channels where brands are often built and nurtured? And how do you manage an online business when you're shipping heavy beverages? So just touching on that range of opportunity.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Listen, thanks for the question. The -- you know the value creation of a category is proportionate in the impulse part of our business. So obviously, we want to maximize our go to market where we can generate impulse occasions, we capture much more value for our -- I think we provide more value to the consumer and we capture more profit as a company.

So obviously, as you think about the areas where we'll be investing money to become much more of a great -- a customer service company, we will invest against the large customers and they are critical for us to serve a lot of households. And there, I think, the opportunity to put all our categories together to serve customers like Walmart, Amazon, etc., is a big idea. Then in terms of the capillarity and the ubiquity of distribution of our categories, I don't think we're satisfied with NAB or we're satisfied with Frito or we're satisfied with any of our companies. There are almost unlimited numbers of point of sale for our categories.

And our strategic intent is to be everywhere where there could be a location to serve a consumer to buy a snack or a beverage. And it's not only the conventional points of sale that you're thinking about. It could be endless numbers. So how do we become -- how do we make money in servicing those stores is the biggest strategic idea.

We have a lot of technology to unlock this. I mean we're playing obviously across non-conventional ways to get to those points of sale, and that's core capability of the company.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Modi of RBC.

Nick Modi -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Yes, good morning, everione. Ramon, you talked about the reinvestment and you talked about front line, putting more investment in front line. Can you maybe help us understand in terms of kind of the percentages you're allocating or you're thinking about in terms of increases in advertising and then also the in-store execution portion in NAB? And then the second question is you also talked about perhaps adding more capacity in the Frito business. So does that mean you're going to reduce your alliance on copackers?

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I'll just start with Frito. Yes, we -- with the growth of the business, we're stretched on some of our technologies, which impacts the service, the demand on some of our products, so we'll be investing in additional capacity in Fritos. We're actually investing, and you should see it in -- I would assume, an additional share of market gain from us in the coming years. With regards to NAB investments, obviously, I cannot give you detail.

This is a very sensitive information of where we're going to invest in our SMP money, but you should think about us adding selling capacity across the U.S. for both our food service and our small format outlets.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo.

Bonnie Herzog -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst

All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I certainly sensed an overall level of urgency from you based on your competition.

And specifically, on NAB, you mentioned you're stepping up innovation investment to reignite growth. So I guess I've got a couple of questions. First, how much of a lag do you anticipate before you anticipate seeing improvements on your top line? And then, in general, how do you think about balancing this higher level of spending with your ability to drive profitability growth, and then more importantly, your ability to expand margins in NAB specifically, again, over the long term?

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We've been investing in NAB now for a year or so in -- especially in our brands, but also in some of our execution capabilities. And we're seen good returns on some of those investments and not so good returns from some others. So what we're doing is, clearly, optimizing our investments against the areas where we see we're getting more overall return.

The performance of the company, as you saw in our Q4 numbers, is improving, right? So we're doing -- we had a good 2.5% in Q3, we grew 2% in Q4. So we'll keep investing in the business to get to a -- to stay positive. And our ultimate ambition is to grow with the market, and the timeline we're aspiring to do that is by the end of this year. It might take us a bit longer.

The way I see this is -- and this is my experience with businesses, large business that need to turn around is, you need to agree on a long-term objectives. In our case, is growing with the market and eventually growing share. And then give -- empower the team with the right resources, make them feel that you support them and give them very clear milestones to go after those -- that turnaround. That's what we're doing with NAB.

The team is responding. We're having very clear process internally to monitor progress. And we feel good. We feel good and we feel fortunate to have the rest of the company portfolio to -- that we can still deliver a very good performance to the company and invest in what is going to be a very powerful business for us in the future.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Grundy of Jefferies.

Kevin Grundy -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Hey, good morning, everyone. So I wanted to come back to portfolio considerations with beverages and snacks. So particularly, Ramon, the ability to drive more consumption occasions, so under sort of the thinking of the two or Better Together. And it sounds like you too are of the view that the beverage and snacks do belong together.

But I think there have been some questions on how successful the company has been in that pursuit of cross-selling over the years, particularly given some of the notable challenges in beverages. So do you see it that way? Is that an unfair assessment that the company has not done as well as it could possibly could in terms of cross-selling and utilizing the strength of both of these businesses. And as you're thinking about the priorities of how to reaccelerate growth in NAB, is there a greater cohesiveness with Frito that could be part of that strategy? So any comments there will be helpful.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Listen, I've been -- as you guys know, I've been in Europe for a few years. And there, we have this kind of what we call power of one model in some countries, I don't know, in a lot of countries actually. And so I understand the value of where the scale makes sense and where the focus makes sense.

And more or less, I mean it's not a science. It's almost an art on where does the scale give you a competitive advantage and where the scale defocuses you. And so, listen, I don't know if you guys walk around the stores for the Super Bowl. But if you see the displays we're able to build together as an organization, the amount of traffic we build for our customers because of those displays, and the combined consumption that was between our two categories because of those display, you would see that there is a very clear opportunity for us to dial up if that is an opportunity.

Also, on the cost side, we're doing a lot of things together, right? So if you think about freight, for example, it's a great area where we're in a lot of productivity because of combined freight. And as you think about future capabilities, we're trying to build them as a combined company. Our e-commerce capability, some of the ones I referred to this morning, the consumer intimacy, so our ability to attract talent, special talent, retain talent and challenge talent is much, much -- we have a much higher likelihood to succeed if we do it as a full PepsiCo. So we see many areas of value for power of one, but we also see areas where power of one could derail the performance of each one of the businesses.

So you will see, yes, there are opportunities, but we have to address them very carefully and with -- and we'll try to narrow. We'll make mistakes in some areas. We'll get better in others. So that's how you should think, but yes, of course, France is a competitive advantage, and we would not be doing the best for our shareholders if we don't explore this area to the maximum.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Laurent Grandet of Guggenheim.

Laurent Grandet -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Yes, good morning, Ramon and Hugh,. Ramon, great speaking with you.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Hi, good morning. Nice to you see again. Nice to talk to you again.

Laurent Grandet -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Lots of question about NAB and Frito-Lay. I like to -- would be interesting to having your perspective on the Quaker business and the role of Quaker in PepsiCo's portfolio in the near or long-term future. Is its margin now is at a relatively high level, especially in comparison to other sales, I mean, businesses? Now it has not been growing for one and it seems like it's not really at the center of the impulse occasion, you said was the strength of PepsiCo. So really, would like to have your perspective on the Quaker business going forward.

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Thank you, Laurent. Listen, we love our Quaker business. I think it's a -- it compliments our portfolio, and it makes us strong in a daypart that in where we're weaker otherwise.

Now we need to be better at exploiting some of the opportunities of that brand internationally. So we have a very strong business in Europe and it's doing very well. Here domestically, you could think of the more we see clearly breakfast becoming an on-the-go occasion. It is -- people are rushing for to get to work early in the morning.

There is a huge opportunity for us to play with Quaker in that, I would say, higher value, new consumer demand moment of breakfast on the go. You're going to see us innovating in that space. And you might -- you will see, again, another vector of power of one as we leverage some of our go-to-market strength to deliver on the convenience on the go forward for Quaker. So I think it plays a role in our portfolio, apart from the, obviously, the cash flow it generates and the great returns we get from that business, but I would see it as part of our broader strategic opportunity of capturing demand moments where we're not very strong in right now.

OK. I think we run out of time. So thank you all of your time and participation in this morning's call. To conclude, I'd like to leave you with just three key thoughts: first, our overarching objective, as you saw, is to accelerate in a sustainable way, our top-line growth; secondly, we're investing to lift performance across the business, making our best businesses better and our productivity lower performing businesses stronger; and third, we expect that investments we're making would not only benefit 2019 with accelerated top-line growth, but will provide a solid foundation for sustainable, attractive market place and financial performance for the years to come.

We look forward to updating you on the progress throughout the year, and we thank you for the confidence you've placed in us with your investments. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 61 minutes

Call Participants:

Jamie Caulfield -- Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Ramon Laguarta -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Hugh Johnston -- Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Dara Mohsenian -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Bryan Spillane -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Lauren Lieberman -- Barclays -- Analyst

Ali Dibadj -- Bernstein Research -- Analyst

Judy Hong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Andrea Teixeira -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Steve Powers -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Caroline Levy -- Macquarie Group -- Analyst

Nick Modi -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Bonnie Herzog -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst

Kevin Grundy -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Laurent Grandet -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

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