Hold on to these service providers

Article Excerpt

FIRSTSERVICE CORP. $92.24 (Toronto symbol FSV; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (416-960-9500; www.firstservice.com; Shares outstanding: 34.6 million; Market cap: $3.2 billion; Dividend yield: 0.8%) set up its commercial real estate business, Colliers International Group, as a separate company on June 1, 2015. 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 September 30, 2018, the company’s revenue rose 9.3%, to $506.4 million from $463.4 million a year earlier (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). Excluding one-time items, earnings per share for the quarter jumped 21.9%, to $0.89 from $0.73 a year earlier. The big gain was the result of cost savings as well as the higher revenue. With the April 2018 payment, FirstService raised its quarterly dividend by 10.2%, to $0.135 U.S. from $0.1225 U.S. The stock yields 0.8%. The company’s outlook remains strong. However, FirstService trades…