Both these acquisitions look promising

Article Excerpt

Each of these two firms has recently completed a big purchase. While we’re always wary of a company’s use of acquisitions to spur growth, we feel the new operations of the two companies will pay off. Moreover, Metro’s purchase of drugstore chain Jean Coutu should actually cuts its risk. RESTAURANT BRANDS INTERNATIONAL INC. $79 (Toronto symbol QSR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 466.8 million; Market cap: $36.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 7.7; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.rbi.com) operates 16,859 Burger King, 4,774 Tim Hortons (coffee and donuts) and 2,926 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (fried chicken) outlets in over 100 countries. In the quarter ended March 31, 2018, sales rose 17.0%, to $1.25 billion from $1.07 billion a year earlier (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). The higher sales are mainly due to the purchase of the Popeyes chain in March 2017 for $1.64 billion. Same-store sales in the quarter improved 3.8% at Burger King and 3.2% at Popeyes…