Torstar can afford to innovate

Article Excerpt

TORSTAR $6.12 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $492.2 million; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 8.6%; www.torstar.com) reported revenue of $192.3 million in the three months ended March 31, 2015. That was down 9.0% from $211.3 million a year earlier, mainly due to to lower ad revenue across its newspapers. However, cost cutting, including layoffs, kept its per-share earnings unchanged at $0.02, before one-time items. The company plans to launch a digital version of The Toronto Star for tablet computers in the fall of 2015. That should help it attract younger readers and spur online ad sales. Torstar expects to invest $13 million to $15 million in this app in 2015. It can easily afford to do so: the company is debt-free and ended the latest quarter with cash and investments of $271.7 million, or $3.38 a share. Torstar’s dividend, which yields a high 8.6%, appears safe. Torstar is still a buy. buy…