Dividend stays despite lean times

Article Excerpt

TORSTAR $6.22 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $501.7 million; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 8.4%; www.torstar.com) reported earnings before one-time items of $0.14 a share in the three months ended March 31, 2013. That was down 36.4% from $0.22 a share a year earlier. Revenue fell 4.8%, to $313.4 million from $329.3 million. The slow economy continues to hurt advertising sales at the company’s newspapers (69% of total revenue), particularly The Toronto Star, its flagship paper. However, distribution revenue rose at its weekly community papers as it expanded into new markets. As well, Torstar will soon start charging users to access its websites. Revenue at Torstar’s Harlequin book-publishing subsidiary (31% of the total) fell 2.9%, excluding the negative impact of foreign exchange rates. Rising sales of e-books failed to offset slowing demand for printed books. The company continues to lay off workers and outsource certain editorial functions, such as laying out printed pages. It also…