Cintas rises as unemployment falls

Article Excerpt

CINTAS CORP. $78 (Nasdaq symbol CTAS; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 117.3 million; Market cap: $9.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 1.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cintas.com) provides a range of products and services to over one million businesses, mainly in North America. The company gets 71% of its revenue by renting uniforms that it makes and cleans. This business also rents a variety of related products, such as mats, towels, mops and cleaning supplies. Cintas gets a further 10% of its revenue by selling uniforms. In addition, the company sells first aid kits, fire extinguishers, sprinklers and emergency-exit lights (11%). It also shreds corporate documents (8%). In April 2014, it merged its shredding operations with Shred-it International. In exchange, Cintas received 42% of the combined company, which uses the Shred-it brand, plus $180 million in cash. Sale prompted special dividend Cintas used the proceeds from the deal to pay a special dividend of $0.85 a share…