Berry Plastics Group (NYSE:BERY)

TMFBlacknGold (99.40) Submitted: 12/19/2012 9:10:12 AM : Start Price: $15.33 BERY Score: -19.06

The recent IPO vaulted Berry Plastics to a market cap of $1.75 billion. While the company raised somewhere around $470 million it has a long way to go before gaining much needed financial flexibility (pre-IPO books show -$452 million in shareholders' equity!). You have to figure there is an enormous amount of competition in the plastic molding/blowing space.

I'll keep an eye on Berry because they do rake in nearly $5 billion in revenue each year. Not much of that goes to net income (a microscopic 0.042% profit margin), but perhaps that just means there is plenty of room for improvement?

A very different company with a much brighter future is Kraton Performance Polymers (NYSE: KRA), which designs plastic/polymer resins for many high-value applications - one of which could transform the asphalt industry.