This real estate investment’s earnings rose sharply in the latest quarter

FirstService Corp., symbol FSV on Toronto, serves the following areas of the real-estate market: commercial real estate; residential property management; and property improvement. FirstService is one of the stocks we cover in Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter for aggressive investing. In the three months ended December 31, 2010, the real estate investment’s revenue jumped 18.5%, to $552.1 million from $465.8 million a year earlier. (All figures except share prices in U.S. dollars.) Earnings per share rose 37.0%, to $0.37 from $0.27. The commercial real-estate division’s revenue jumped 30.1% in the latest quarter, to $268.0 million. Property-improvement revenue rose 15.1%, to $119.6 million. Residential property management revenue gained 6.0%, to $164.4 million. The real estate investment’s long-term debt of $201.5 million is a low 23.2% of its $867.8-million market cap. The company should continue to report higher revenue and earnings as the economy continues to recover. The stock trades at 15.6 times this year’s forecast earnings of $1.94 a share. If you’re interested in investing in aggressive stocks like FirstService, you should subscribe to our Stock Pickers Digest newsletter. What’s more, you can get one month free when you subscribe now. Click here to learn how.

Jim is an associate editor at TSI Network. He is the lead reporter and analyst for The Successful Investor and Wall Street Stock Forecaster and a member of the Investment Planning Committee. Jim has held the Chartered Financial Analyst designation since 1992 and spent more than a decade at the Financial Post DataGroup before joining TSI Network. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto.