Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat: Can you please comment on Counsel Corp. for me?

Article Excerpt

Counsel Corp., $1.88, symbol CXS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 99.1 million; Market cap: $185.3 million; www.counselcorp.com), operates a residential mortgage-lending business through its wholly owned subsidiary, Street Capital. The company sources its mortgages through a network of independent brokers across Canada. It then sells the mortgages it underwrites to leading financial institutions. Even though the company sells the mortgages, it continues to handle all communication with borrowers throughout each mortgage’s term. That lets it renew mortgages without the cost of acquiring new ones, which typically involves significant expenses for things like brokers, marketing and underwriting. In the first quarter of 2013, Counsel launched a plan to dispose of non-core divisions—Asset Liquidation, Case Goods and Real Estate—to focus on its financial services business. The company had finished these moves by the end of the first quarter of 2014. In the three months ended March 31, 2014, Counsel’s revenue rose 16.1%, to $29.8 million from $25.7 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, the company earned…