Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Can I have your recommendation on Coastal Contacts? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Coastal Contacts, $1.92, symbol COA on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 56.9 million; Market cap: $109.3 million; www.coastalcontacts.com) sells prescription contact lenses, eyeglasses and sunglasses directly to the public through its web sites. It offers both branded and private-label products to customers in more than 150 countries. Coastal was founded in 2000, and first sold shares to the public for $1 each in March 2004. The company began solely as a North American seller of contact lenses over the Internet, and began to expand internationally in 2006. It now makes over 78% of its sales outside the U.S. The company believes that Lenslogistics AB, its wholly owned subsidiary in Sweden, is the largest direct-to-consumer retailer of contact lenses in Europe. In 2006, Coastal bought a leading online distributor of contact lenses and optical products in the Netherlands, and also added one of the largest online contact-lens distributors in Asia. The company began selling eyeglasses in 2008. Coastal assembles eyeglasses in its laboratories (or…