Cintas is worth its higher p/e

Article Excerpt

CINTAS CORP. $63 (Nasdaq symbol CTAS; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 117.0 million; Market cap: $7.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 1.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cintas.com) earned $374.4 million in its 2014 fiscal year, which ended May 31, 2014, up 18.7% from $315.4 million in 2013. Per-share earnings rose 21.0%, to $3.05 from $2.52, on fewer shares outstanding. If you exclude a gain on the sale of Cintas’s document-shredding business, it would have earned $2.79 a share in fiscal 2014. Revenue rose 5.5%, to $4.6 billion from $4.3 billion, as the improving economy spurred demand for Cintas’s uniform-rental and office-cleaning services. The company will probably earn $3.06 to $3.15 a share in fiscal 2015. The stock trades at a high, but still reasonable, 20.3 times the midpoint of that range. Cintas is a buy. buy…