Topic: Dividend Stocks

TRANSCONTINENTAL INC. $10 – Toronto symbol TCL.A

TRANSCONTINENTAL INC. $10 (Toronto symbol TCL.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 80.6 million; Market cap: $806.0 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.4; Dividend yield: 5.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.tctranscontinental.com) gets two-thirds of its revenue from its commercial printing business, which is the largest in Canada and the fourth-biggest in North America. The remaining third comes from publishing newspapers and magazines. Transcontinental is also continuing to expand its online operations: it now has over 3,500 websites that attract 18.7 million unique visitors a month.

The company’s exposure to the highly cyclical advertising business adds to its risk. However, over half of its printing revenue comes from long-term contracts that range from three to 18 years.

For example, Transcontinental currently prints a wide variety of magazines and advertising materials for Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto symbol RCI.B). Rogers recently agreed to extend this contract to 2019. That will add a total of $250 million to Transcontinental’s revenue.

Meanwhile, the company’s revenue rose 7.8% in its 2012 third quarter, which ended July 31, 2012, to $517.0 million from $479.4 million a year earlier. That’s largely because Transcontinental recently swapped its Mexican printing operations for six printing plants in Canada.

If you disregard contributions from acquisitions, the company’s revenue would have fallen 3%. The government of Quebec recently changed its school curriculum, which has hurt demand for the textbooks Transcontinental prints. Advertising revenue also declined at its newspapers and magazines.

Earnings fell 23.4%, to $24.9 million, or $0.31 a share. A year earlier, it earned $32.5 million, or $0.40. These figures exclude unusual items, such as costs to integrate the new printing plants. The company recently built a studio to produce information programs for independent TV stations and its websites. This was the main reason for the lower earnings.

Transcontinental is making good progress absorbing its new plants. Eliminating overlapping functions should save it $40 million a year, starting in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012. It expects to finish this process in 18 months.

The company probably earned $1.74 a share in fiscal 2012. The stock trades at 5.7 times that estimate. The $0.58 dividend yields 5.8%.

Transcontinental is a buy.

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