The Successful Investor Hotline – Friday, February 10, 2012

Article Excerpt

CANADIAN TIRE CORP., $65.95, Toronto symbol CTC.A, rose 3% this week after the retailer reported better-than-expected earnings. In 2011, the company earned $467.0 million, or $5.71 a share. That beat the consensus estimate of $5.43 a share. The latest earnings are also up 5.2% from $444.2 million, or $5.42 a share, in 2010. Sales in 2011 rose 12.7%, to $10.4 billion from $9.2 billion in 2010. That’s largely due to the company’s August 2011 purchase of The Forzani Group Ltd., which sells sporting goods through over 500 stores in Canada, including SportChek and Athlete’s World. If you exclude the cash held by Forzani, Canadian Tire paid $739.9 million for this acquisition. Same-store sales rose 1.1% at the company’s 488 Canadian Tire stores, and 2.8% at its 385 Mark’s Work Wearhouse casual-clothing stores. Same-store sales at the 534 Forzani stores were up 2.6% since the company purchased them. Revenue at Canadian Tire’s financial-services division, which mainly issues credit cards, was flat in 2011. However, the…