An aggressive stock up 33% despite COVID

Article Excerpt

For the April 2020 issue, we welcomed FirstService to our Successful Investor Aggressive Growth Portfolio from its original spot as a Power Growth Investor pick. Since then, the stock has jumped 33% as the company takes advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to make attractive acquisitions. Those new assets set it up for even more gains. FIRSTSERVICE CORP. $170 is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol FSV; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 43.4 million; Market cap: $7.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; Dividend yield: 0.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.firstservice.com) has two main businesses: FirstService Residential (54% of revenue) provides property management services such as collecting monthly condominium fees and cleaning/maintenance services; and FirstService Brands (46%) offers a wide variety of property management services through several franchised businesses, including Paul Davis Restoration and CertaPro Painters. The U.S. supplies 90% of the company’s overall revenue. The remaining 10% comes from Canada. FirstService tends to fuel its growth with acquisitions. It cuts the risk of this strategy by focusing on smaller businesses…