My investment portfolio is made up of top UK shares of all shapes and sizes. Here is a FTSE 100 and a FTSE 250 stock I aim to hang onto for a very long time.
A top FTSE 250 healthcare share
I think my shares in veterinary services provider CVS Group (LSE: CVSG) will create handsome returns as Britons spend increasing amounts on their pets. High adoption rates during Covid-19 lockdowns also powered this sort of spending through the roof. But the amount we collectively forked out on animal care was rising strongly in the years before the pandemic, suggesting that this is no passing fad.
Forecasts from Mordor Intelligence on the animal healthcare market certainly suggests CVS Group has room for significant growth. It thinks the UK veterinary services market will be worth $2.4bn by 2026, up from the $1.4bn in 2020.
CVS Group may suffer some trouble if shortages of veterinarians worsen. “The group’s done a lot to help keep retention and vacancies at acceptable levels,” as analysts at Hargreaves Lansdown recently commented, “but it’s something worth keeping an eye on.”
Right now though, I think the brilliant sales opportunities coming its way still makes this a FTSE 250 share worth owning.
City analysts expect earnings at CVS Group to rise 7% in this financial year to June. This leaves the company trading on a P/E ratio of 24.7 times. Such a hearty valuation could prompt a share price correction if trade begins to slow. But as things stand, I think the healthcare share is worth every penny of its premium valuation.
A FTSE 100 stock built for growth
A big risk facing Bunzl (LSE: BNZL) in the near-term is a sudden fall in Covid-19 equipment. Sales of its gloves, sanitiser, masks and the like have remained strong as the Omicron variant has driven infection rates higher. Toppling cases in some parts of the globe need to be watched carefully then.
It’s my opinion though that Bunzl remains a top buy, despite this risk. I bought the FTSE 100 business long before the pandemic and plan to cling onto it forever. It supplies must-have products for a variety of industries like healthcare, food service, retail and cleaning. It also has a broad geographic footprint as it sells its goods into more than 30 countries.
This strength-through-diversification platform isn’t the only reason I love brilliantly-boring Bunzl however. I also like its strong track record of growing annual earnings by way of acquisitions. And, pleasingly, the company has no plans to slow its M&A ambitions. Bunzl made more than a dozen acquisitions in 2021, taking total spending to a whopping $950m for the past two years combined.
City forecasters believe earnings will match the previous years levels in 2022. This leaves Bunzl trading on a forward P/E ratio of 17.6 times. This looks pretty cheap, in my opinion. So cheap in fact that I’m thinking of buying more of the FTSE 100 business for my portfolio.
