maple leaf foods

Toronto symbol MFI, is Canada’s largest food processing company. Its products include fresh and prepared meats and poultry, mostly under the Maple Leaf and Schneider brands. It also makes fresh and frozen bakery products through 89.8%-owned Canada Bread Co. Ltd.

BOMBARDIER INC., Toronto symbols BBD.A $2.52 and BBD.B $2.47, plans to cut production of its Global 5000 and 6000 business jets. That’s partly because economic sanctions have hurt sales in Russia. Demand has also weakened in China and Latin America. The company will replace these planes with newer, larger versions called the Global 7000 and 8000 in 2016 and 2017. That will help it compete with new models from Gulfstream Aerospace and Dassault Aviation. As a result, Bombardier will lay off 1,800 employees (about 3% of its workforce) at its plants in Toronto, Montreal and Belfast, Northern Ireland. It didn’t say how much it expects to pay in severance and other costs....
MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $23 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 143.1 million; Market cap: $3.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) is Canada’s largest food processing company. It mainly sells its products, including fresh and prepared meats and poultry, under the Maple Leaf and Schneider brands. Maple Leaf is close to finishing an overhaul of its meat-processing operations that mainly involves closing older plants and shifting their operations to newer facilities. It has also cut the number of warehouses in its distribution business from 19 to two. The company is beginning to benefit from this plan: in the three months ended March 31, 2015, it lost $2.9 million, or $0.02 a share, compared to a year-ago loss of $132.9 million, or $0.95. If you exclude restructuring costs, Maple Leaf earned $0.05 a share in the latest quarter....
A holding company is a company that owns all or a substantial part of a variety of different businesses. These businesses may be private companies, or publically traded. Holding companies may own all, or a majority or a minority, of companies in which they invest. The one thing most holding companies have in common is that they trade for less than the combined value of their holdings. This “holding company discount” is a well-known phenomenon in finance. It represents a special kind of hidden asset and potential profit for investors in holding companies. When holding companies sell assets or break themselves up into their constituent parts, much if not all of the discount may disappear. In other words, holding companies can usually sell their assets for fair market value, rather than at a discount. In addition, fair market value may turn out to be be more than analysts figured they were worth. Even without a break-up, buying a holding company at a discount to its asset value puts more assets to work for you for each dollar you invest....
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the Good Friday holiday, our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 2, 2015. CAE INC., $14.86, Toronto symbol CAE, announced this week that it has sold five flight simulators to WestJet and other customers. In all, these orders are worth $70 million, or 3% of CAE’s $2.2 billion of annual revenue. The company has now sold 36 simulators in its 2015 fiscal year, which began April 1, 2014. It sold a record 48 simulators in fiscal 2014....
MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $21 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 143.0 million; Market cap: $3.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; Dividend yield: 0.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) is close to completing an ambitious restructuring that includes unloading less profitable businesses and modernizing its meatprocessing plants. Since 2010, the company has closed five facilities, expanded three others, merged 17 distribution centres into two and built a new processing plant. It has also simplified its product lines and streamlined its computer networks. The stock has gained 10% since the start of 2015 but could suffer in the short term, particularly if the restructuring doesn’t wrap up on schedule....
PLEASE NOTE: This is our last Hotline for 2014. Our next Hotline will go out on Friday, January 9, 2015.

ENCANA CORP., $16.41, Toronto symbol ECA, plans to invest more in its shale oil properties in 2015, even though lower oil prices will cut its cash flow.

In 2015, the company’s capital expenditures will be between $2.7 billion and $2.9 billion (all amounts expect share price in U.S. dollars), up from $2.6 billion this year.

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TIM HORTONS INC., $99.00, Toronto symbol THI, has completed its merger with U.S.-based BURGER KING WORLDWIDE INC., $35.50, New York symbol BKW.

On Monday, December 15, 2014, the combined company, called Restaurant Brands International Inc., will begin trading on the Toronto and New York exchanges under the QSR symbol.

Restaurant Brands is the world’s third-largest fast-food restaurant operator, after McDonald’s and Yum Brands, with 14,000 Burger King restaurants and 4,590 Tim Hortons outlets in 100 countries. In all, these locations have annual sales of over $23 billion U.S.

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MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $19 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 142.1 million; Market cap: $2.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; Dividend yield: 0.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) is Canada’s largest food processing company. It mainly sells its products, including fresh and prepared meats and poultry, under the Maple Leaf and Schneider brands.

In May 2014, the company sold its 90.0% stake in Canada Bread, Canada’s second-largest producer of baked goods after Weston Bakery. It received $1.66 billion for this holding.

Meanwhile, Maple Leaf continues to make progress with a major restructuring of its meatprocessing operations, which mainly involves closing older plants and shifting their operations to newer facilities. The company expects to complete the plan by the end of 2015.

Maple Leaf is starting to see some of the plan’s benefits. In the quarter ended September 30, 2014, it lost $26.7 million, or $0.19 a share, compared to a loss of $24.5 million, or $0.18 a share, a year ago. But if you exclude restructuring costs, losses improved to $0.13 a share from $0.19.

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Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor.

Maple Leaf Foods is nearing the end of its multi-year plan to unload less profitable businesses and modernize its meat-processing plants. The plan’s costs have depressed the company’s current earnings, but it greatly improves its longer-term prospects.

MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. (Toronto symbol MFI; www.mapleleaf.ca) is Canada’s largest foodprocessing company. It mainly sells its products, including fresh and prepared meats and poultry, under the Maple Leaf and Schneider brands.

In May 2014, the company sold its 90.0% stake in Canada Bread, Canada’s second-largest producer of baked goods after Weston Bakery. It received $1.66 billion for this holding.

Meanwhile, Maple Leaf continues to make progress with a major restructuring of its meat-processing operations, which mainly involves closing older plants and shifting their operations to newer facilities. The company expects to complete the plan by the end of 2015.

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Investment Counsellor
Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell’ as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. LifeLogger Technologies (symbol LOGG on the U.S. over-the-counter market; www.lifelogger.com) is a Florida company that aims to market its gum-packet-sized LifeLogger wearable camera....