A new buy for patient investors

Article Excerpt

Holding companies give investors the choice of buying the parent company or its publicly traded subsidiaries. In many cases, we like some subsidiaries but not others, so we prefer to invest in them directly and avoid the parent. Each situation is different, of course, and sometimes we recommend the parent over the subsidiaries. A good example is Maple Leaf Foods. Another is ATCO, the parent company of Canadian Utilities, which is a long-time recommendation of The Successful Investor. Like most holding companies, ATCO trades for less than the total value of its various pieces. This is known as a “holding-company discount.” Right now, you can buy a share of ATCO for $38, and get roughly $42 worth of Canadian Utilities. That means ATCO’s other businesses are essentially free. ATCO is now reorganizing its operations, and may break itself up over the next few years. That would help it shrink its holding-company discount. As well, spinoffs of divisions as separate companies often work out…