TORSTAR CORP. $7.98 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $637.6 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 6.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.torstar.com) is closing its free Metro daily newspapers in Regina, Saskatoon and London, Ontario, after they failed to attract enough advertisers. The company will keep publishing Metro papers in larger cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg. Torstar has also shut down The Grid, a money-losing free weekly paper in Toronto.
The company didn’t say how much it would pay in severance and other costs, but these moves should free up cash that it can invest in its websites.
Torstar is a buy.