Popular brands fuel overseas success

Article Excerpt

Hidden value is a key factor we look for in our stock recommendations. A good example of an underappreciated asset is a company’s brand name. Balance sheets often fail to assign any value to brands, even household names that have built up multitudes of loyal customers over the years. These four companies own some of the best brands in their industries. The strength of their banners is now helping them expand beyond Canada. However, only three are buys right now. THOMSON REUTERS CORP. $31 (Toronto symbol TRI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 826.5 million; Market cap: $25.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 4.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.thomsonreuters.com) gets 57% of its revenue and 50% of its earnings by selling news and information to professionals in the banking industry. It also sells specialized information products to clients in the legal, accounting and scientific research fields. The company was already a well-established specialized information provider before it merged…