Topic: Growth Stocks

Stock Pickers Digest Hotline – Friday, May 16, 2014

Article Excerpt

AIMIA INC, $19.15, symbol AIM on Toronto, owns and operates Aeroplan, Canada’s largest loyalty program, with over 4.8 million members who collect Aeroplan miles from participating companies. Members can exchange miles for flights, car rentals, hotel rooms and merchandise. The company also owns Nectar, the U.K.’s biggest loyalty program. In addition, it has interests in Air Miles Middle East and Nectar Italia, as well as Club Premier, the leading loyalty program in Mexico. On January 1, 2014, TD Bank replaced CIBC as the main credit card issuer for Aeroplan. Under a new 10-year deal, TD is now launching new cards under the Aeroplan banner, including cards for frequent flyers and small businesses. The deal also let CIBC hang on to Aeroplan accounts held by customers who also bank at CIBC. That was about half the Aeroplan portfolio. The TD deal is working well for Aimia: in the quarter ended March 31, 2014, TD signed up 275,000 new cardholders. That’s well above the 50,000…