Wait till their earnings catch up to their price

Article Excerpt

Restaurant Brands and Saputo have fuelled their recent growth with acquisitions. Both companies have a strong history of absorbing new businesses that improve their profitability. Those track records cut their risk of growing by acquisition. However, currently, both stocks seem expensive in relation to their earnings. RESTAURANT BRANDS INTERNATIONAL INC. $75 (Toronto symbol QSR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 461.6 million; Market cap: $34.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 7.6; Dividend yield: 3.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.rbi.com) operates 16,767 Burger King, 4,748 Tim Hortons (coffee and donuts) and 2,892 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (fried chicken) outlets in over 100 countries. In the quarter ended December 31, 2017, sales rose 11.0%, to $1.23 billion from $1.11 billion a year earlier (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). The higher sales are mainly due to the purchase of the Popeyes chain in March 2017 for $1.64 billion. If you exclude costs related to that acquisition, the company earned $0.66 a..