Maple Leaf gains as restructuring ends

Article Excerpt

MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $23 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 143.1 million; Market cap: $3.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) is Canada’s largest food processing company. It mainly sells its products, including fresh and prepared meats and poultry, under the Maple Leaf and Schneider brands. Maple Leaf is close to finishing an overhaul of its meat-processing operations that mainly involves closing older plants and shifting their operations to newer facilities. It has also cut the number of warehouses in its distribution business from 19 to two. The company is beginning to benefit from this plan: in the three months ended March 31, 2015, it lost $2.9 million, or $0.02 a share, compared to a year-ago loss of $132.9 million, or $0.95. If you exclude restructuring costs, Maple Leaf earned $0.05 a share in the latest quarter. Sales rose 9.7%, to $780.2 million from $711.3 million. That’s mainly because the company raised prices…