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Inevitably, there are lots of FTSE 100 corporations with no intention of aggressively pursuing progress. Maybe they function in a mature trade or are working to enhance their stability sheets.
Nevertheless, there are specific corporations that by no means relaxation. Like Amazon, they’ve that drive to develop and seize additional market share. You can even name them relentless, which was really Jeff Bezos’s most popular authentic identify for Amazon.
Certainly, should you sort “relentless” right into a search engine with .com after it, you’ll nonetheless be redirected to the tech juggernaut’s web site.
After all, daring progress plans typically lead to corporations biting off greater than they’ll chew. However these two formidable FTSE 100 corporations have thus far managed to search out the candy spot.
Acquisition machine
Ashtead (LSE: AHT) rents out a wide array of development and industrial tools to a various vary of industries. It has grown tremendously for over twenty years and is now the main plant rent agency within the UK and the second largest in North America.
It has reached this huge scale partly by way of its voracious acquisition technique. In 2017, it spent £437m on bolt-on acquisitions and new website openings. That jumped to $1.3bn and $1.1bn in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Consequently, its market share within the US has risen from 8% in 2018 to 13% at the moment. Administration intends to extend that determine additional.
Now, one draw back is that the majority of Ashtead’s enterprise is tied to the financial cycle. That presents challenges if there’s a extreme financial downturn. Nevertheless, to make its earnings extra resilient, the corporate has moved into quite a few specialty industries.
For example, it rents out golf course upkeep tools and entered the industrial cleansing trade in 2015. Whereas development demand ebbs and flows, grass will at all times want mowing and buildings consistently want cleansing.
In 2021, it additionally began hiring out particular cameras, rigs, and lighting tools to main movie and TV manufacturing units.
Ashtead’s five-year share value return of 127% crushes that of the FTSE 100 (-3%).
Constructing an enormous pipeline
The second FTSE 100 agency not resting on its laurels is AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN), the UK’s largest firm by market cap.
As of July, the biopharmaceutical big had 172 tasks in its pipeline throughout oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory, and uncommon ailments. And this distinctive product pipeline has lately been bearing fruit, with a document 34 regulatory approvals in main markets final 12 months.
Not content material to face nonetheless, although, AstraZeneca is investing an enormous $2.6bn per quarter on R&D!
Importantly, analysts count on the corporate’s momentum to proceed. In keeping with TradingView, of the 31 brokers protecting the inventory, not a single one at the moment has a ‘promote’ ranking on it.
The drugmaker additionally has a robust place in China, which now accounts for 13% of its international gross sales. That’s undoubtedly a really engaging market long run, with 39% of the nation’s inhabitants projected to be over retirement age by 2050.
However it does current threat, given rising geopolitical tensions between the West and China. In response, AstraZeneca has reportedly drafted plans to spin off its China operations right into a individually listed firm. That might unlock further shareholder worth, however a component of uncertainty stays.
The shares are up 83% in 5 years, however I feel they appear poised to rise additional.
