Torstar
Toronto symbol TS.B, publishes The Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper, and other dailies and community newspapers in Southern Ontario. It also owns Harlequin Enterprises, the world's largest publisher of romance novels.
TORSTAR CORP. $8.96 (www.torstar.com) recently bought Heartsong Presents Book Club, a publisher of Christian romance novels, for an undisclosed sum through its Harlequin book-publishing subsidiary. This purchase nicely complements Harlequin’s “Love Inspired” line of inspirational novels. Best Buy.
PENGROWTH ENERGY CORP. $9.90 (www.pengrowth.com) will focus on developing its western Canadian oil properties in 2012. Due to lower natural gas prices, it …read more »
TORSTAR CORP. $9.25 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $739.1 million; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.4%; www.torstar.com) has agreed to buy 25% of privately held Blue Ant Media Inc., which owns three specialty TV channels that focus on music, comedy and travel.
Blue Ant is also in the process of buying High Fidelity HDTV Inc., which …read more »
TORSTAR CORP. $9.43 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.2 million; Market cap: $746.9 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 5.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.torstar.com) has agreed to buy 25% of privately held Blue Ant Media Inc., which owns three specialty TV channels that focus on music, comedy and travel.
Blue Ant is also in the …read more »
TORSTAR CORP. $8.90 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $711.1 million; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.6 %; www.torstar.com) continues to see strong growth at its web sites. That’s helping its offset weaker advertising revenue at its newspapers. In the three months ended September 30, 2011, Torstar’s earnings before one-time items rose 2.7%, to $0.38 from …read more »
TORSTAR CORP. $10.24 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.6 million; Market cap: $815.1 million; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.9 %; www.torstar.com) formed a 50/50 joint venture with Sweden’s Metro International S.A. in 2005.
This business publishes free daily newspapers for commuters in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. In April 2011, the joint venture launched new free papers in …read more »
TORSTAR CORP. $8.97 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.5 million; Market cap: $713.1 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 5.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.torstar.com) publishes The Toronto Star, which is Canada’s largest daily newspaper by circulation. The company also publishes three other daily newspapers and over 100 weeklies, mainly in southern Ontario. Torstar’s newspaper …read more »
Media companies continue to face a number of challenges, including the slowing economy, which is hurting advertising revenue, and the explosion of free information available on the Internet.
However, we feel high-quality information providers like these three will adapt and thrive. All three are market leaders, and they own some the industry’s best-known brands. What’s more, they are building strong Internet …read more »
Torstar’s earnings jumped in the latest quarter, but its shares have fallen, because it missed consensus estimates. Still, its cost cuts should make its newspapers more profitable, and its Internet businesses are growing quickly. As well, Harlequin should gain from the shift to ebooks from printed books. Torstar now trades at just 6.3 times its likely 2011 earnings of $1.72 …read more »
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific advice on how to make winning stock picks. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.
Today’s …read more »
MANITOBA TELECOM SERVICES INC. $33 (www.mts.ca) continues to benefit from its cost cuts and strong demand for wireless and high-speed Internet servcies. In the first quarter of 2011, earnings per share jumped 59.5%, to $0.67 from $0.42 a year earlier. Revenue fell 0.6%, to $439.3 million from $442.0 million. Buy.
TORSTAR CORP. $13 (www.torstar.com) has raised its quarterly dividend by 35.1%, …read more »
