MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $12 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 139.5 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) is starting to see the benefits of its a major restructuring plan, which mainly involves closing older meat-processing plants and bakeries and shifting their operations to modern facilities. Excluding all unusual items, earnings per share would have risen 38.4%, to $1.01 in 2011 from $0.73 in 2010.
Sales for the year fell 1.5%, to $4.9 billion from $5.0 billion. If you disregard operations that the company sold and unfavourable foreign currency rates, sales would have risen by 4.7%.
The company plans to raise its selling prices, which will help it offset rising ingredient costs. The savings from the restructuring plan, which Maple Leaf expects to complete in 2014, will also help it absorb these higher costs.
Maple Leaf Foods is a buy.
