Topic: How To Invest

Stock Pickers Digest Hotline – Friday, July 14, 2017

Article Excerpt

ALIMENTATION COUCHE-TARD INC., $61.88, symbol ATD.B on Toronto, operates 10,869 convenience stores across North America and Europe. In the three months ended April 30, 2017, sales increased 30.1%, to $9.62 billion from $7.40 billion a year earlier (all figures except share price in U.S. dollars). Earnings per share jumped 36.8%, to $0.52 from $0.38. The big gains were due to profitable acquisitions as well as cost controls. Couche-Tard’s latest acquisitions include its March 2015 purchase of The Pantry chain in the U.S. The company paid $1.7 billion for that business. More recently, Couche-Tard paid Imperial Oil $1.7 billion for 279 prime Esso gas stations in Ontario and Quebec. That deal closed in August 2016. The company has also just completed the acquisition of fuel and convenience store chain CST Brands (symbol CST on New York) for $4.4 billion U.S. Its bid beat 7-Eleven’s. As part of the deal, it sold a significant portion of CST’s Canadian assets to Parkland Industries (symbol PKI on Toronto)…