Hold on to these service providers

Article Excerpt

FIRSTSERVICE CORP. $117.41 (Toronto symbol FSV; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (416-960-9500; www.firstservice.com; Shares outstanding: 34.6 million; Market cap: $4.1 billion; Dividend yield: 0.7%) set up its commercial real estate business, Colliers International Group, as a separate company on June 1, 2015 (see this page). It then handed out shares to its investors. Since the spinoff, the company has carried on with residential property management and its property improvement services for commercial and residential real estate. In the three months ended December 31, 2018, FirstService’s revenue rose 13.5%, to $503.3 million from $443.6 million a year earlier (all figures except share price in U.S. dollars). Excluding one-time items, earnings per share for the quarter jumped 26.6%, to $0.62 from $0.49 a year earlier. The big gain was the result of cost savings as well as the higher revenue. With the April 2019 payment, FirstService will raise its quarterly dividend by 11.1%, to $0.15 U.S. a share from $0.135 U.S. The new annual rate of $0.60 U.S. yields 0.7%. The…