Torstar cuts its losses

Article Excerpt

TORSTAR $1.68 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 80.6 million; Market cap: $133.2 million; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 6.0%; www.torstar.com) has now sold the land and buildings of its former printing facility in Vaughan, Ontario, just outside Toronto. Earlier this year, the company closed the plant and outsourced the printing of The Toronto Star—its flagship newspaper—to Transcontinental Inc. (Toronto symbol TCL.A). The company recorded a $21.8 million gain on the sale. That helped it earn $1.1 million, or $0.01 a share, in the third quarter of 2016. A year earlier, Torstar lost $164.3 million, or $2.05. If you leave out one-time gains and charges, the company’s losses in the quarter improved to $0.08 a share from $0.13. The improvement comes from job cuts and restructuring. Revenue fell 12.6%, to $162.1 million from $185.4 million, on weaker advertising sales at its newspapers. The stock yields a high 6.0%. A dividend cut is possible, although the company is unlikely to eliminate shareholder payouts completely. Torstar is…