DUN & BRADSTREET CORP. $135(New York symbol DNB; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 35.9 million; Market cap: $4.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.9; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.dnb.com) provides credit reports on over 240 million companies. Its clients use this information to make lending and buying decisions.
Credit reports supply 63% of Dun & Bradstreet’s revenue. The remaining 27% comes from other information products, such as software that helps businesses manage websites and customer data.
In 2014, revenue rose 1.7%, to $1.68 billion from $1.65 billion in 2013. All regions saw gains: North America (74% of revenue), up 1.2%; Europe (15%), up 4.1%; and Asia (11%), up 1.9%.
The company spent $80 million on new growth initiatives, including cloud-based delivery systems. It’s also adding new information to its databases, including through acquisitions. For example, it recently paid $125 million for NetProspex, a firm that collects corporate officers’ contact information, including email addresses, phone numbers and titles.
These costs cut Dun & Bradstreet’s 2014 earnings by 8.5%, to $274.9 million from $300.5 million in 2013. Per-share earnings declined 1.8%, to $7.46 from $7.60, on fewer shares outstanding.
Dun & Bradstreet can easily afford to keep investing in new products. Its long-term debt of $1.35 billion is a manageable 28% of its market cap. It also holds cash of $319.4 million, or $8.80 a share.
The company should earn $7.72 a share in 2015, and the stock trades at a moderate 17.5 times that estimate. It also raised its dividend by 5.1%. The new annual rate of $1.85 a share yields 1.4%.
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