recent acquisitions

GANNETT CO., INC. $30 (New York symbol GCI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector: Shares outstanding: 225.8 million; Market cap: $6.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.gannett.com) is the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S., with 82 dailies, including USAToday, its flagship paper.

The company offers subscribers in 35 markets a special rate if they also take USAToday, which is partly why USAToday is the top-selling newspaper in the U.S., at 1.1 million copies a day.

Gannett also publishes 443 non-daily papers in the U.S., as well as 17 dailies and over 200 weekly papers and magazines in the U.K. Publishing accounts for 57% of its revenue but just 22% of its profits.

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CCL Industries, $124.79, symbol CCL.B on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 32.3 million; Market cap: $4.3 billion; www.cclind.com), makes packaging products for the food, health care, automotive and personal care industries. Major customers include Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. The company gets 83% of its revenue by making pressure-sensitive labels for plastic bottles and other forms of packaging. CCL also makes aluminum aerosol cans and beverage bottles (12% of revenue) and flexible plastic tubes (5%)....

AutoCanada Inc., $74.80, symbol ACQ on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 21.9 million; Market cap: $1.8 billion; www.autocan.ca), has 42 franchised car dealerships in eight provinces. It sells numerous brands, including Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, Cadillac, Infiniti, Nissan, Hyundai, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Audi, Volkswagen, BMW and Mini. However, Chrysler vehicles (including Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Fiat) supply nearly 74% of the company’s revenue. In 2013, AutoCanada’s dealerships sold roughly 36,000 vehicles and processed about 364,000 repair and maintenance orders in their 381 service bays....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on stocks to buy as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle. This week an Inner Circle members asked us about one of the world’s best known entertainment companies. Walt Disney now has five separate businesses and continues to add to its assets. Pat examines the company’s entertainment empire and the impact of several recent high-profile acquisitions. He also consider the company’s financial outlook and whether the shares can continue their recent rise. Q: What is your opinion about Disney? Thanks....

MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL INC., $37.96, Nasdaq symbol MDLZ, took its current form on October 1, 2012, when the old Kraft Foods Inc. broke itself into two publicly traded companies: Mondelez, which focuses mainly on snack foods, and Kraft Foods Group, which makes a variety of grocery products. The stock rose 7% this week after Mondelez agreed to merge its packaged coffee business with European coffee maker D.E. Master Blenders. (In June 2012, the old Sara Lee Corp., a former recommendation of ours, spun off D.E. Master. It later accepted a friendly takeover offer from Joh A Benckiser, a privately held German firm.)...

PLEASE NOTE: Our next Hotline will go out on Friday, April 25, 2014. GOOGLE INC. $543.34, Nasdaq symbol GOOGL, has paid an undisclosed sum for Titan Aerospace. Titan is a privately held company that’s developing unmanned aircraft, or drones, that run on solar power. That means they don’t need to refuel, so they can fly non-stop for up to five years....

SYMANTEC CORP. $20.76 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (1-408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 691.6 million; Market cap: $14.3 billion; Dividend yield: 2.9%) sells computer-security technology, including anti-virus and email-filtering software, to businesses and consumers. It also offers data-archiving software. In Symantec’s fiscal 2014 third quarter, which ended December 27, 2013, its earnings per share rose 13.3%, to $0.51 from $0.45 a year earlier. The gains were mainly due to savings from a new restructuring plan that includes laying off 30% to 40% of its managers and simplifying its product lines. Revenue fell 4.8%, to $1.7 billion from $1.8 billion. That’s mainly because the company is retraining its sales staff as part of its restructuring, and that disrupted their closing of new deals. Slow computer sales have also hurt demand for anti-virus software....

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the Good Friday holiday, our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 17, 2014. YAMANA GOLD INC., $9.37, symbol YRI on Toronto, teamed up with Osisko Mining (symbol OSK on Toronto) last week to thwart a hostile takeover bid by Goldcorp (symbol G) for Osisko. Yamana bid $1.4 billion in cash and shares for 50% of Osisko, which owns the Canadian Malartic mine in Quebec. Canadian Malartic produced 475,277 ounces of gold in 2013. However, Goldcorp has now raised its bid to $3.6 billion in cash and shares for all of Osisko. The Yamana offer, combined with contributions from two of Canada’s largest pension funds in the form of a loan and the purchase of a 37,500-ounce-per-year gold stream, valued Osisko at $3.4 billion....

ACI WORLDWIDE $57.16 (Nasdaq symbol ACIW; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (402-334-5101; www.tsainc.com; Shares outstanding: 38.5 million; Market cap: $2.2 billion; No dividends paid) makes software for processing transactions involving credit cards, debit cards, automated teller machines, point-of-sale terminals and interbank payments. Its products also help cut fraud.

In the quarter ended December 31, 2013, ACI’s revenue rose 26.4%, to $283.2 million from $224.1 million a year earlier. That’s mainly due to the contribution from Online Resources Corp., which ACI bought for $126.6 million early last year. Earnings per share rose 3.2%, to $1.30 from $1.26.

ACI has made a number of recent acquisitions: in February 2012, it bought S1 Corp. for $540 million. S1 sells transaction software for banks, credit unions, retailers and other payment processors. It also recently bought Official Payments Holdings for $109 million. Official Payments processes about 20 million payments totalling over $9 billion annually.

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ACI WORLDWIDE INC., $59.84, symbol ACIW on Nasdaq, makes software that processes transactions involving credit cards, debit cards, automated teller machines, point-of-sale terminals and interbank payments. Its products also help cut fraud. In the quarter ended December 31, 2013, ACI’s revenue rose 26.4%, to $283.2 million from $224.1 million a year earlier. That’s mainly due to contributions from two acquisitions it made in 2013: Online Resources Corp., which it bought for $126.6 million, and Official Payments Holdings ($109.0 million). These moves helped ACI further expand into online banking and bill payments. Earnings per share rose 3.2% to $1.30 from $1.26....