Poised to gain from new Target stores

Article Excerpt

RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $25 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 262.1 million; Market cap: $6.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 7.2; Dividend yield: 5.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.riocan.com) stands to gain from the acquisition of the Zellers department-store chain by U.S.-based Target Corp. (New York symbol TGT). Target plans to convert 21 of the 34 Zellers stores in RioCan’s malls to the Target banner. It will make a decision on the rest later this year. If Target decides not to convert the remaining stores, they will operate as Zellers stores until their leases expire. The Target stores should help draw more shoppers to RioCan’s malls. As a result, it would receive higher revenue from leases that are based on a percentage of a tenant’s sales. More customer traffic would also make it easier to charge higher rents. RioCan is a buy. buy…