Food retail sector looks to profit from restructuring

There is still plenty of room for cost cutting and consolidation within corporate Europe and it forms an investment theme with much further to run. While Goldman Sachs is predicting real GDP growth of 2.1% for this year rising to 2.6% for 2000, there are still plenty of managers looking for cost-cutting plays in defensive stocks such as food retailing and pharmaceuticals. Raj Shant, European fund manager at Credit Suisse Asset Management, says: "I would say that we are more in the bullish camp than the bearish camp on European growth. One of the big concerns going into 1999 was that lots...