Tegna gains from tax cuts

Article Excerpt

TEGNA INC. $11 (New York symbol TGNA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector: Shares o/s: 215.6 million; Market cap: $2.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Divd. yield: 2.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.tegna.com) owns 46 TV stations. It also offers online services, including Premion (advertising) and G/O Digital (web design). Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017 rose 9.2%, to $480.5 million from $440.1 million a year earlier. Earnings fell 44.0%, to $68.5 million, or $0.32 a share, from $122.3 million, or $0.56. That’s mainly because Tegna spun off its Cars.com business as a separate company. It also reduced its stake in the CareerBuilder job search website, from 53% to 17%. It received $250 million from the sale of those shares. The latest earnings exclude a one-time $221 million gain due to changes to the U.S. code. Tegna expects the tax rate cut will save it $35 million in 2018. Tegna is a buy. buy…