Topic: How To Invest

Q: Hello: This is my first inquiry since joining the Inner Circle. What is your advice on Stella-Jones? Thanks and regards.

Article Excerpt

A: Stella-Jones Inc., $38.24, symbol SJ on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 69.2 million; Market cap: $2.7 billion; www.stella-jones.com), makes pressure-treated wood products. They include: railway ties (36% of sales); utility poles (32%); treated lumber products for the residential market (21%); lumber for industrial uses such as construction timbers and highway guardrails (5%); and logs and lumber (6%). The company gets most of its utility poles from the timberlands it leases in Quebec and B.C. It also buys wood for railway ties and other products from sawmills in the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. provides 69% of its sales, while Canada supplies the remaining 31%. Revenue jumped 139.3%, from $651.6 million in 2011 to $1.6 billion in 2015. The company’s earnings rose 153.9%, from $55.7 million in 2011 to $141.4 million in 2015. Due to more shares outstanding, earnings per share gained 134.5%, from $0.87 to $2.04 (all per-share amounts adjusted for a 4-for-1 stock split in October 2013). Stella-Jones’s sales in the three months ended…