BCE tightens its media focus

Article Excerpt

BCE INC. $52.87 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 848.1 million; Market cap: $44.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.0%; www.bce.ca) has sold its 15% stake in the Globe and Mail newspaper to Woodbridge Co., the private firm controlled by the Thomson family. Woodbridge now owns 100% of the Globe. The company didn’t say how much it received, but the sale will let it focus on its main media businesses, including CTV Television, specialty channels, radio stations and their related websites. In the second quarter of 2015, the media division’s earnings rose 2.4% from a year earlier and accounted for 9.8% of BCE’s total. BCE is a buy. buy…