Cramer disagrees with PepsiCo’s recent analyst downgrade

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday gave his take on Morgan Stanley’s decision to downgrade food and beverage giant PepsiCo after its second-quarter earnings report, saying he thinks the company could continue to outperform and that its latest results aren’t “as good as it gets.”

Cramer admitted that PepsiCo’s high price-to-earnings multiples give him pause — it sells at 23 times next year’s earnings — but said he feels the company’s leadership is so strong that it won’t be affected by the business cycle or the cost of labor.

“But I say when you call a top or say something’s as good as it gets, you’d better know something meaningful about management — maybe a great leader’s retiring, maybe something’s gone terribly wrong and nobody else sees it,” Cramer said. “Without those, I think  the ‘as good as it gets’ call is a very risky call to make when a company’s got great management at the helm.”

Cramer said he is impressed with PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta, who he said was able to raise the company’s growth rate when few thought it would be possible. It went from 4% to 5% to 8% and then this quarter to 10%.

He also noted the food and beverage giant bought an 8.5% stake in energy drink brand Celsius when it wasn’t very popular and traded for $75. It now trades for nearly double that price, and Cramer envisions a possible PepsiCo takeover of the company.

“This is no longer the old Pepsi or Frito Lay: The company’s done a remarkable job building brand equity. It’s no longer, per se, a buyback machine — It’s a machine that pours money into global growth markets,” Cramer said. “Ramon Laguarta is a fantastic manager who’s doing amazing things with Pepsi and Frito Lay that even bulls like me never thought possible.”