Investors will gain from lower costs

Article Excerpt

FINNING INTERNATIONAL INC. $31 is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol FTT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 162.4 million; Market cap: $5.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8; Dividend yield: 2.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.finning.com) sells and services Caterpillar-brand heavy equipment in Western Canada, but also Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, the U.K. and Ireland. Due to COVID-19, Finning cut 9% of its workforce and reduced other costs. Those moves cut its annual expenses by $100 million. The company now aims to cut a further $50 million from its annual costs, mainly by shrinking its back-office operations and automating purchasing and other functions. It expects to reach this target by the end of 2022. The company plans to use some of those savings to reward investors. For example, it repurchased about $25 million of its shares in the first five months of 2021. It will also probably raise its dividend in the next few months; the current annual rate of $0.82…