Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of May 7, 2024

Article Excerpt

We’ve said for a long time that growth by acquisition is inherently riskier than internal growth, since it carries an above-average chance of unpleasant surprises. Under the rules of financial physics, a buyer of something rarely knows as much about it as the seller. Of course, some companies do a better job than others of choosing acquisition targets. For them, successfully integrating acquisitions can spur strong growth, along with big share-price gains for their investors. AltaGas took on significant risk with a huge acquisition in July 2018. However, by expanding its regulated cash flows and keeping its promise to sell non-core assets, the company has now paid down much of the debt it took on to make the purchase. We picked the stock for our readers in the May 2019 issue of our Power Growth Investor at $18.22 a share. The shares have handed our subscribers a solid 66.6% gain on top of a high yield. Still, we think AltaGas has lots of…