Hold for low p/e and rising dividends

Article Excerpt

WESTERN UNION CO. $14 (New York symbol WU; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 596.6 million; Market cap: $8.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.westernunion.com) provides money-transfer and foreign-exchange services in over 200 countries. In the three months ended September 30, 2012, the company’s earnings rose 12.4%, to $269.5 million from $239.7 million a year earlier. Western Union is an aggressive buyer of its own shares. Because of fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share rose at a faster pace of 18.4%, to $0.45 from $0.38. If you exclude the cost of integrating the businesspayments division of U.K.-based Travelex Holdings, which Western Union bought in 2011, per-share earnings would have risen 15.0%, to $0.46 from $0.40. Revenue rose just 0.8%, to $1.42 billion from $1.41 billion. That’s mainly because the high U.S. dollar hurts the…