H&R BLOCK INC. $16 (New York symbol HRB; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 305.3 million; Market cap: $4.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.hrblock.com) is the world’s largest provider of income-tax-preparation services.
H&R Block’s U.S. offices prepared 20.8 million tax returns between November 1, 2010 and April 18, 2011. That’s up 6.1% from 19.6 million for the same period a year earlier. Most of this growth came from a 26.8% jump in returns processed over the Internet. However, the average fee per return fell 3.3%.
The stock has gained over 40% since the start of 2011, but it has fallen lately due to H&R Block’s involvement with subprime mortgages. Even though it shut down its Option One mortgage business in December 2007, holders of bonds backed by Option One’s mortgages now aim to force H&R Block to buy back these securities. The cost would likely be much higher than the company’s $4.9-billion market cap. Still, it will likely take years to settle these claims.
Due to this uncertainty, H&R Block now trades at just 11.4 times the $1.40 a share that it probably earned in the fiscal year ended April 30, 2011. The $0.60 dividend still seems safe, and yields 3.8%.
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