Topic: Growth Stocks

Stock Pickers Digest Hotline – Friday, April 20, 2012

Article Excerpt

ALIMENTATION COUCHE-TARD, $39.52, symbol ATD.B on Toronto, has jumped almost 16% since it announced on Wednesday that it is buying Norway’s Statoil Fuel & Retail ASA for $2.8 billion U.S. Couche-Tard is now up over 29% since we made it our #1 stock pick for 2012 in our February issue at $30.55. Statoil Fuel currently has over 1,700 stations in Scandinavia and over 550 in Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia. The company accounts for over 30% of convenience store sales in each of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia and Estonia, and is in the top five in both Lithuania and Poland. Norway’s largest North Sea oil producer, Statoil ASA, owns 54% of publicly traded Statoil Fuel. The government of Norway owns 67% of Statoil ASA. Statoil ASA is now focused on reversing its declining oil production, and has likely not devoted its full attention to Statoil Fuel’s potential. That creates lots of room for Couche-Tard to add value to the gas station chain. For example,…