Breville has produced another strong result, revealing a ~29% jump in both revenue and net profit for the first half. This was driven by growth across all segments/geographies.

The company also increased FY EBIT guidance to $136m (~5% lift on earlier guidance), which would represent growth of over 20% on last year.

On a tralining 12-months basis, the EPS is 65.8c, which puts shares on a PE of about 47.

That's quite lofty for a manufacturer of appliances, but then again Breville has recorded some very impressive growth. Per share sales and dividends have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 13% since 2015. There's also lots of scope for continuing growth (something it continues to invest heavily into).

I don't currently hold.

Breville is a business that should be pretty ordinary.

A manufacturer of kitchen appliances -- what is arguably a capital heavy, commodity style business, in a highly competitive global market --- isn't one you'd expect to go well.

But the financial performance has been very impressive over a long period of time for this 88 year old company.

Per share earnings have grown by about 9%pa since 2010, with shares up roughly 4 fold over that period.

Breville has moved into the US (its largest segment) and more recently Europe with great success. 80% of profits come from offshore.

Even during the COVID downturn, the group has delieverd 32% revenue growth between January and April (latest figures).

According to consensus forecast (as per CommSec), EPS is likely to grow at ~10% per year for the next few years.

There's a lot to be said for branding, scale and operating efficency. And there's some strong expectations for continued market share growth.

At the same time, these are largely discretionary goods, and the global economic outlook isnt great. At current prices shares are trading on a PE of over 40, and offering only a 1.5% yield.

So it's hard to dislike the business, but difficult to like the price. In my opinion at least.