FedEx’s big acquisition will pay off

Article Excerpt

FEDEX CORP. $193 (New York symbol FDX; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 267.4 million; Market cap: $51.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 0.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fedex.com) delivers packages in the U.S. and 220 other countries. Its fleet of 150,000 trucks and 650 aircraft handle 14 million packages a day. FedEx’s revenue rose 18.0%, from $42.7 billion in 2012 to $50.4 billion in 2016 (fiscal years end May 31). Those gains are largely due to more businesses using its just-intime delivery services to cut their inventory costs and speed up manufacturing. The strong growth in online shopping volumes also contributed to the higher revenue. The company’s earnings fell 5.4%, from $6.59 a share (or a total of $2.1 billion) in 2012 to $6.23 a share (or $2.0 billion) in 2013. That’s partly because it decided to retire some of its older planes earlier than originally planned. TNT purchase spurred big earnings jump Earnings then rebounded to $6.75 a share (or…