Electronic Future Makes Thomson a Buy

Article Excerpt

THE THOMSON CORP. $48 (Toronto symbol TOC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 640.6 million; Market cap: $30.7 billion; SI Rating: Above average) provides specialized information products and services to over 20 million professionals in the legal, scientific, medical and financial industries. In the past few years, Thomson has sold most of its print operations to focus on electronic data products. That cut its paper and delivery costs, and increased its profits. Thomson now gets over 80% of its revenue from electronic products. Final step in decade-long shift Revenue fell from $7.8 billion in 2002 to $7.6 billion in 2003, but rose to $8.7 billion in 2005 (all amounts except share price in U.S. dollars). In October 2006, Thomson unveiled a plan to sell its Learning division, which mainly supplies textbooks to schools. If you disregard this operation, Thomson’s revenue fell to $6.6 billion in 2006. Profits before unusual items rose from $0.92 a share (total $606 million) in 2002 to $1.45 a..