Leading market share makes Indigo a buy

Article Excerpt

Indigo Books & Music Inc. $13 (Toronto symbol IDG Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 24.8 million; Market cap: $322.4 million; SI Rating: Speculative) is Canada’s largest book retailer. It operates 88 superstores under the Chapters, Indigo and the World’s Biggest Bookstore banners, plus 161 small format stores. Indigo also sells products over the Internet. The company has expanded into gifts, educational children’s toys and electronic products in the past few years to cut its reliance on books. It focuses on high-end merchandise to avoid directly competing with discount retailers such as Wal-Mart. In its third fiscal quarter ended December 29, 2007, Indigo’s earnings rose 20.0%, to $49.2 million from $41.0 million a year earlier, but that’s mostly due to a one-time $7.6 million non-cash tax recovery. The year-earlier quarter included a $1.6 million pre-tax writedown. Earnings per share rose 19.8%, to $1.94 from $1.62. The last quarter of the year includes Christmas and is the company’s busiest period. Indigo generally…