Kobo investments weigh on Indigo

Article Excerpt

INDIGO BOOKS & MUSIC INC. $13 (Toronto symbol IDG; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 24.7 million; Market cap: $321.1 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; Dividend yield: 3.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.chapters.indigo.ca) saw its revenue rise 5.0% in its 2011 fiscal year, which ended April 2, 2011, to $1.0 billion from $968.9 million in the prior year. Even so, earnings fell 67.5%, to $11.3 million, or $0.45 a share, from $34.9 million, or $1.39 a share. The earnings drop is due to ongoing investments in its 51.4%-owned Kobo electronic-book (e-book) operations. This business sells e-book downloads and the Kobo e-book reading device. Indigo and its partners recently invested an additional $50 million in Kobo; Indigo’s share was $13 million. Kobo has attracted 3.6 million users from more than 100 countries in just over 15 months. However, it faces fierce competition from market leader Amazon.com (Nasdaq symbol AMZN), which is now selling more e-books than paper books. The stock trades at 11.8 times the…