New ventures will fuel Indigo’s growth

Article Excerpt

INDIGO BOOKS & MUSIC INC. $16 (Toronto symbol IDG; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 24.5 million; Market cap: $392.0 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; Dividend yield; 2.5%; SI Rating: Average) is Canada’s largest bookseller. The company operates 96 superstores under the Indigo and Chapters banners. It also has 151 mall-based stores under the Coles, Indigo, Indigospirit, SmithBooks and The Book Company banners. Indigo continues to expand its Internet businesses. The company already sells books, music and movies through its web site, and it is becoming a leader in the fast-growing field of electronic books. It recently merged its shortcovers.com web site with a new downloading service called Kobo (an anagram of “book”). Indigo’s $5-million contribution gave it a 57.7% stake in Kobo. Kobo has strong long-term potential Kobo, which is expanding in Europe and Asia, has many more customers than shortcovers.com. This new site will also help Indigo compete with online bookseller Amazon.com, which recently began selling its Kindle e-book reader in…